Mael Takes Flight is a short-form mockumentary series that examines questions of school inclusion through the perspective of Mael, a young girl with Down syndrome.

By appropriating the codes of institutional documentary, including interviews, classroom observations, and pedagogical discourse, the project explores, with humour and critical distance, the ways contemporary society speaks about inclusion, disability, and success.

This strategy exposes the contradictions, discomfort, and at times the symbolic violence embedded in dominant educational narratives.

Through everyday situations, the series interrogates the expectations placed on so-called “atypical” children, the implicit norms of mainstream schooling, and the roles played by adults such as teachers, families, and educational support staff in shaping these frameworks.

Mael does not attempt to conform to a predefined model. She learns, observes, shifts balances, and reveals what prevailing discourses on inclusion often leave unexamined.

The short format and the mockumentary form allow for an approach that is both accessible and incisive, where humour functions as a tool of revelation rather than caricature.

Rather than offering definitive answers, Mael Takes Flight opens a space for reflection on what it truly means to include, asking who includes whom, under what conditions, and according to which norms.

The series ultimately proposes an understanding of inclusion not as a slogan or abstract ideal, but as a complex, imperfect, and deeply human process shaped by power relations, affects, and forms of resistance.