Director Katrina Channells
Rated G
Score 6/6

After years of living an institutionalised life, a group of intellectually disabled adults discover what it feels like to be free.

It is time for the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, so before we get to far into things there is going to be a series of reviews of documentaries featured in the festival and if your wondering this year’s festival is going to be an online festival.

With everything that is going on in the world right now, I am actually kind of glad that I watched Leaving Allen Street because the levels of happiness of the adults featured made me happy and if I am being honest I have to admit sitting here writing this review I have the start of some happy tears as I think about the documentary.
One of the benefits of going to a film festival, of any type is watching something that might challenge any preconceived notions that you have of a given genre. Now the best way I would describe Leaving Allen Street is a sort of ‘fly on the wall’ documentary with interviews. Now, given this is not a radical rethink of the documentary genre, this is just achieved without an onscreen presenter (something you would normally associate with any documentary).
I found what some of the parents had to say about the Oakleigh Centre had done for them to be very interesting. I really enjoyed the footage of the Oakleigh residents’ planning meetings about the upcoming move to their new houses. I also found myself my tearing up a little when everybody arrived at the houses and saw their new rooms.