From: Valerie Young Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2009 10:41 PM To: disabdis Subject: URGENT: Cinema captioning and audio-description - please read "To Whom It May Concern, I am joining my voice in dissent against the cinemas' attempt to be exempt from Disability Discrimination Act for any length of time. This is a backward step and against the spirit of fairness and equal access to all members of the society." AUSLAN VERSION: Please click on the blue link below for an Auslan version of the recent Media Release from Arts Access Victoria: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yGaQbqz3aQ Spread this email as widely as possible thanks. ENGLISH VERSION: Full View Arts Access Victoria MEDIA RELEASE ... A IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM VERONICA PARDO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Arts Access Victoria and The Other Film Festival are calling upon individuals and organisations to voice their objection to the recent application made by Village Roadshow, Greater Union, Hoyts and Reading Cinemas requesting exemption from the Disability Discrimination Act for a period of two and a half years. This means that Australians who are Deaf, hard of hearing, legally blind and vision impaired, including older Australians, stand to lose their right to complain to the Human Rights Commission about the lack of provision of captioning and audio description services at ANY of the 125 cinemas (1182 screens) owned by these four exhibitors. If the exemption is granted, cinemas will provide captioning and audio description for a minimum of three (3) screenings in 35 cinemas around Australia. Let’s put that into perspective: ? Jointly, these exhibitors have 1,182 screens across Australia. ? They show approximately 30 movies per screen every week. ? That’s a total of 41,370 screenings per week (1182 screens x 5 sessions per day x 7 days) ? Of these, only 105 will be captioned and audio described. This is equal to less than 0.3% of all movies screened per week. ? At this pace, it will take 1000 years to achieve universal access, that is, access to all screenings in all cinemas. Arts Access Victoria and The Other Film Festival ask - Is this fair? A key element of the Rudd Government’s National Arts and Disability Strategy is to: Explore opportunities to enhance accessibility and inclusive practices in the film, television and broadcast industry. This may include programs in Auslan and efforts to increase captioning and audio-description services, particularly for government funded films, and promoting international best practice models which support casting artists with a disability. (Focus area 4. Strategic development, 9. Film, television and broadcast industry) www.cmc.gov.au/publications/nationalartsanddisabilitystrategy Is the cinema exhibitors’ proposed exemption in the spirit of the goals of our National Strategy? We don’t think so. If you don’t think this is right, you can voice your concern by sending an email or letter to disabdis@humanrights.gov.au by Monday 7 December 2009. For further information, you can visit the Human Rights Commission website at: www.humanrights.gov.au/disability_rights/exemptions/cinema/notice or you can contact ARTS ACCESS VICTORIA at: Voice 03 9699 8299 Fax 03 9699 8868 TTY 03 9699 7636 Email info@artsaccess.com.au ©2009 Arts Access Victoria | 24 Eastern Rd South Melbourne VIC 3205 This email was sent to ewing_ad@yahoo.com.au. To ensure that you continue receiving our emails, please add us to your address book or safe list. View this email on the web here. You can also forward to a friend. Unsubscribe Powered by Mad Mimi® Last chance to win a Sony entertainment pack thanks to Yahoo!7. Hurry, ends Nov 30. Enter now. ============================== Information in this message is confidential. It is intended solely for the person or the entity to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are not to disseminate, distribute or copy this communication. Please notify the sender and delete the message and any other record of it from your system immediately. ==============================