How Inaccessible Film Festivals Silenced Disabled Voices in Cinema – New Research

Although much important work remains to be done, recent years have seen significant progress in the campaign for more authentic representation of disability in film and television.

However, while there is growing interest in how disability is represented or, unfortunately, too often excluded from the finished product, less attention has been paid to a serious barrier to accessibility that affects disabled film creators at the very foundation of the industry. Film festivals are the lifeblood of the business and provide aspiring filmmakers and those already in the walled gardens of Hollywood with invaluable networking and career development opportunities.

Earlier this month, a collective made up of FWD-Doc (Filmmakers with Disabilities), the Film Event Accessibility Working Group and the Film Festival Alliance released its “Accessibility Scorecard Impact Report.” The report examined accessibility data from 75 film festivals and events around the world, taking into account the experiences of 353 respondents. The online questionnaire was originally launched in July 2022 and goes beyond simple viewing experiences to also include the red carpet, stage, networking and related events.

Key figures from the Accessibility Scorecard Impact Report include that 75% of people with disabilities surveyed reported some form of inaccessibility during their film festival experience. Forty-six percent felt that venue accessibility was not accurately reported on the event website, 41% said there was no accessible seating process in place, 47% of disabled attendees felt that festival volunteers were not trained on access features, while 60% said the panels and Q&As they attended were not moderated in an accessible way.

In total, only five cinema events out of a total of 75 scored above the median. These were the Superfest Disability Film Festival, the BlackStar Film Festival, the International Queer Women of Color Film Festival, Access:Horror Film Festival and the New Orleans Film Festival.

Impeded career progression

Cassidy Dimon, founder of the Film Accessibility Working Group, whose members include ReelAbilities New York and the Sundance Institute, said in an email interview: “When filmmakers don’t have access to their own screenings and Q&As, they can’t build the foundation many filmmakers have to sustain their careers and prove to people in the industry that their films are worth engaging with.”

She continues: “Many major festivals are also markets, they are a workplace for filmmakers. This is where the doors are open to funders, distributors and other festival programmers. When filmmakers are denied access to these festivals due to inaccessibility, it prohibits them from being able to do their work. Likewise, the inaccessibility of festivals prevents film critics, publicists and other industry members with disabilities from being able to do their jobs.

It’s a position firmly echoed by Amanda Upson, interim director of FWD-Doc:

“Filmmakers need access to festivals to progress in their careers. Festivals provide opportunities for training, professional development, mentoring, networking, exposure, access to funding, and much more,” says Upson.

“If you work in entertainment, you want to go to film festivals and events for the same reason you would go to CES or AWS if you work in consumer technology or cloud computing. »

Of course, these observed barriers to access at the grassroots level have a direct link to the representation of disability on screen, which, without disabled voices in the room, risks being inauthentic or left out altogether. The cost to the film industry, as Upson explains, is not simply cultural marginalization, which is bad enough, but has serious financial repercussions.

“The long-term consequence for the industry is being deprived of full access to the $13 trillion in disposable income held globally by the disability community,” says Upson.

“Just ask studios about the ‘inspirational’ films that don’t do well on the subject. I recently had a studio president ask me why some of their disability films didn’t work. It’s because they didn’t have disabled executives who knew how to tell or market disability stories. The industry is constantly looking for new and fresh perspectives; disabled filmmakers have that, as well as real-world skills from having to break ground and break ground where there wasn’t one before.”

“Without representation, stories about disability are often told, marketed, and distributed by people without lived experience of disability, leading to inauthentic representation and sometimes exploitation,” says Dimon.

“If we are not there to advocate for more funding, present authentic stories, or program them, we are denying a key demographic a seat at the table. As we have learned over the years from other DEIA initiatives (which often leave out Category A), this lack of representation at every stage of the process means that we are unable to advocate for what we we need or the stories we want to tell. »

A unique art form

Co-director and co-producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary Crip Camp and co-founder of FWD-Doc and the 1in4 Coalition Jim LeBrecht says there is a unique beauty in disability-inclusive filmmaking.

“I believe that people with lived experience with one or more disabilities are natural problem solvers,” LeBrecht says.

“We live in a world that was built with the idea that nothing awaits or desires us. To survive, we develop skills and creative approaches in our daily lives, and this experience is ingrained in our art. We are motivated people who value hard-earned gains.”

He continues: “When I think of documentarians like Reid Davenport and his film, I didn’t see you there or Alison O’Daniel and her film The Tuba ThievesI know I have seen some remarkably compelling films that could not have been created by a non-disabled filmmaker simply because of their lived experiences.

“For me and many others, disability is part of our culture. It is our shared experience exploding with each person’s unique variation on a theme of life, art, and thought. To quote the late, great artist Neil Marcus, ‘disability is art – an ingenious way of living.’ To deny anyone access to us and our art is a failure. The consequence of this erasure, this exclusion, is for all of us to reflect and decide for ourselves.”

As part of its recommendations to make film festivals and events more accessible, the coalition recommends a commitment to measurable accessibility goals and a dedicated budget allocation.

These goals include live captioning for panels and Q&As, providing low-sensory spaces, closed captioning for films, providing American Sign Language (ASL ) or an applicable sign language interpreter, where available, accessibility information that is easily found on festival websites, and ensuring that event staff are aware of the access services that have been advertised .