Accessibility Notes

ACCESS IS FOR EVERYONE

We value the Asian and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander stories that create IMPACT, and spark INSPIRATION. It is our desire that these stories reach diverse audiences, to strengthen connections to each other and build solidarity. Leading with that desire, we deepen our understanding on how to make our programming accessible for everyone. We are mindful of the varying access needs in the communities that we serve, and we are growing a new understanding that access is for everyone. We now build in these considerations at the beginning of our program planning.

This year, we have encouraged filmmakers to share films with subtitles and/or captions; as a way to increase access for deaf/Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Communities. With gratitude to the filmmakers that have joined us in our “access is for everyone” journey, we will present their films with subtitles/open captions; a way for our hearing community and deaf/Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing communities to share in a more inclusive audience experience.

We have sourced ASL interpretation and CART technology (live transcription), to make our post-screening and panel programming more accessible as well.

This year we are also presenting films that offer audio description. Audiences for select programs can utilize a personal listening device to access the audio description of the visual storytelling; this is an offering to create an inclusive movie-going experience for those who have low vision, those who are blind, and those who are sighted.

For our audiences who are unable to join us at in-person events, we will have a select lineup of films presented in our Virtual Cinema. We are grateful for the filmmakers who join us in this accessibility offering and have chosen to participate this limited online engagement.

We are deeply grateful for Color Congress; through their leadership and inspirational world-building, we are now in community with LaVant Consulting. With guidance from LaVant, and additional allies in our VC network, we are encouraged to continue this journey of “access is for everyone”. We are called to create more financial abundance so that we’re able to enrich the accessibility offerings for all of our programming, across all venues -during the festival and throughout the year.

As we continue our “access is for everyone”journey, we’d like to hear from everyone in our community. How can we better serve you and your access needs? Please send us your concerns, ideas and specific requests via this form (https://airtable.com/shrhhYRlh5qDFXPSx).