You Are [NOT] Welcome
You Are [Not] Welcome movie was born out of my Churchill Fellowship research trip to Australia — a journey that challenged, unsettled and ultimately sharpened my thinking about inclusion in sport and fitness. What began as conversations inside gyms, community centres and high-performance spaces quickly revealed a deeper, more uncomfortable truth: for many disabled people, the barrier isn’t ability — it’s belonging. This film is an honest, personal exploration of what it feels like to enter spaces that were never designed with you in mind, and a bold call to rethink who sport is really for.
Logline
Marina lived for sport. After a tragic accident, a simple visit to the gym – once her happy place – is no longer a given. She sets out to travel across countries in search of what it takes to feel welcome again – for herself and for many other disabled people.
Watch the Teaser
You Are [NOT] Welcome isn’t just about challenge — it’s about what happens when life shifts overnight and you have to figure out who you are again. It’s raw, honest and full of grit… but also heart. This teaser offers an early glimpse into the world of the film — a sense of its tone, questions and direction. As the project evolves, it will also weave in powerful stories and insights gathered during my travels across the USA and Canada. Take a few minutes. Watch the teaser and step inside what this film is becoming.
Synopsis
After breaking her neck in 2020, Marina attempts to return to the gym — a place where she once felt a deep sense of belonging and happiness. As an Ironman triathlete, training had been familiar and grounding, something she returned to again and again. As a wheelchair user, she expects the challenge to be physical. Instead, she encounters barriers that are small but decisive: a step at the entrance, uncertainty from staff, personal trainers who refuse to work with her because they feel unprepared. These moments are not openly hostile, but they quietly redefine who the space is for.
As Marina spends more time in gyms, she realises these experiences are not unique to her. Many disabled people face similar obstacles — some keep trying, others stop going, and some never feel invited to begin. What starts as frustration becomes a simple but persistent hope: that she, and other disabled people, might one day be able to go to the gym without barriers.
This realisation becomes the starting point for a wider journey. The film follows Marina across the UK, Australia, Canada and the USA as she moves through a wide range of environments: local and commercial gyms, high-performance training facilities, community-led spaces, beaches and other public leisure and sports settings. Alongside these, she also visits specialised training centres designed exclusively for disabled people, where coaches and practitioners work confidently with disabled bodies as the norm rather than the exception.
Experiencing these spaces side by side, the audience encounters fitness culture from the inside — through training sessions, arrivals and departures, conversations, pauses and moments of hesitation — as Marina observes how welcome is shaped, negotiated and sometimes quietly withdrawn.
Directors Statement
Five years ago, I broke my neck. The injury did not end my relationship with movement, but it changed what I began to notice. I returned to the spaces that once shaped my daily life expecting to rebuild something familiar. Instead, I encountered barriers that were subtle but decisive: a step at an entrance, staff who didn’t know how to respond, personal trainers who refused to work with me because they felt unprepared. These moments were not dramatic or confrontational. But they unsettled my sense of belonging in places I had always trusted.
If fitness spaces are designed to welcome everyone, why do so many people still struggle to feel they belong? And what does “welcome” actually mean in practice? These are not rhetorical questions. They are the ones I carry throughout this film.
This film follows me as an adaptive athlete and wheelchair user moving through fitness spaces across the UK, Australia, Canada and the USA. I enter each space not as a presenter or expert, but as a participant: training, travelling, watching, listening. I am open with my emotions and not afraid to be vulnerable on camera, so that what I feel becomes something the viewer can feel too.
The camera stays close to moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed — hesitation at reception, equipment that almost works, a trainer searching for the right language. Training sequences anchor the story in the body. Sound design stays close to breath, movement and rhythm. Humour appears unexpectedly, offering warmth without softening the investigation. There is no villain here. The tension lies in systems rather than individuals — in habits that have gone unexamined and assumptions never tested.
You Are [NOT] Welcome ends by staying with the act of looking closely. Observation becomes documentation. Documentation becomes exposure. The film asks how much can change when welcome is treated not as a label, but as a lived experience. My larger mission remains ongoing: to make the world more inclusive, one gym at a time. My smaller dream remains simple: to wrap my arms around a tree again one day. Between those two scales, the film finds its meaning.
meet the team
Get to know our talented team behind the movie
How we will make it happen
Movie Development Plan
November 2025
Shooting in Australia. In 3 locations - Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. Variety of public and commercial gyms, sport charities, Paralympics Australia and PT training organisations.
September- October 2026
Shooting in the USA and Canada
November- March 2027
Editing
June 2027
Movie release in the UK and Australia
"Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does
Nelson Mandela
Help us make this film happen
Interested in sponsoring, partnering, or supporting the production of You Are [NOT] Welcome? We’d love to hear from you.