Cinema for All - Accessible Cinema Initiative by Artifesto
Cinema should be for everyone. Yet today, many audiences are excluded:
Deaf and hard-of-hearing locals – need captions in the national language (e.g. French/Dutch). Without them, they are excluded from both local and international films.
Deaf and hard-of-hearing expats – need captions in English, since they may not understand the national language. Without them, they are excluded from almost all films.
Expats and newcomers in general – need English subtitles to access local productions (French/Dutch, etc.) and world cinema films in many different languages.
Audiences with limited English skills – even for English-language films, subtitles in English are essential to follow fast dialogues, strong accents or noisy soundtracks.
Artifesto is launching the Accessible Cinema Initiative to respond to this gap. We propose Accessible Screenings where:
International films include subtitles in both the local language and English.
Local films include same-language captions plus English subtitles.
A small change that opens cinema to everyone – locals, expats, and people with hearing loss. Interested? Contact us!
