Advocacy groups have ramped up the pressure on cinema companies for applying an exemption from the Disability Discrimination Act. Last year, Hoyts, Village, Greater Union and Reading cinema chains have asked the Australian Human Rights Commission for a two and a half year exemption from complaints about providing captioning for the deaf and audio description for the blind. In return, the cinemas say they will install the equipment to run the technology for three screenings a week in 35 cinemas in Australia.<\/p>\n
According to Veronica Pardon, Executive Director of Arts Access Victoria, there were more than 40,000 movies screening a week in Australia and, of these, only 105 would be captioned and audio described. Gaye Lyons from Deaf Australia said that less than 0.3 per cent of all cinema session are accessible to people who are deaf, hard of hearing, legally blind or who have vision impairments. This means that 4 million Australians are excluded from going to the cinema because of their disability.<\/p>\n
In a letter to Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes, Hoyts executive Frank Perikleous said the offer would greatly expand on the 12 Australian cinemas now offering three sessions a week of current films with captioning and was being done ‘’in good faith’’ to help the disabled enjoy films. He said the proposal involved ‘’a significant investment of capital outlay’’ and was made ‘’in good faith to support, encourage and make available to the Australian community of people with a vision and a hearing impairment an increased opportunity to enjoy feature films’‘.<\/p>\n
There are almost 300,000 people who have both hearing and vision impairments in Australia, a number that is expected to rise to almost three million by 2050 due to our ageing population. People with deaf\/blindness can have varying degrees of hearing and vision impairment and require different technologies to enable media access.<\/p>\n
Access technologies are available such as captioning for people who are deaf or hearing impaired and audio description for people who are blind or vision impaired. These technologies can also enable greater media access for people with deaf\/blindness.<\/p>\n
The ‘accessible cinema’ initiative has seen the roll out of 12 cinemas with audio description and captioning facilities across the country, increasing media access for people with deaf\/blindness. This initiative is a joint effort of Media Access Australia (MAA) and the Independent Cinemas Association, and is funded by the Federal Department of Health and Ageing. The new accessible cinema locations are:<\/p>\n
AMC <\/span>Tweed Heads 6, NSW<\/span>; Palace Verona, Paddington NSW<\/span>; Cmax Cinemas, Palmerston NT; Cinema Nova, Carlton Melbourne VIC<\/span>; Deakin Cinema Complex, Mildura VIC<\/span>; Sale Cinemas, VIC<\/span>; Dendy Canberra Centre, ACT<\/span>; Cmax Cinemas Devonport TAS<\/span>; Grand Cinemas, Bunbury, WA; Big Screen Cinemas, Hervey Bay, QLD<\/span>; Palace Nova East End Cinemas, Adelaide SA; and Whyalla Cinema, SA. Each cinema will show 2 – 3 captioned screenings per week, while audio description will be available at any showing of the designated movie.<\/p>\n In 2007, the US had over 830 accessible cinemas, representing about 15 per cent of locations and an accessible cinema for every 357,000 people. In 2008, the UK had over 300 cinemas, representing nearly 39 per cent of locations and an accessible cinema for every 203,000 people.<\/p>\n This issue should be given importance as the number of people over the age of 65 will almost double in the next 20 years, whereas the population of Australia will only increase by about 20 per cent. This is projected to result in the number of people with vision impairment to double to 800,000 by 2020, while the number of people with hearing impairment is expected to increase from 3.5 million today to over 5 million in 2020.<\/p>\n