A new online resource aims to increase acces­si­bil­i­ty across the film industry

Part of the great joy of cin­e­ma is that it seem­ing­ly has no lim­its – great films have the capac­i­ty to trans­port us to entire­ly dif­fer­ent worlds, chal­lenge our per­cep­tions, and show us some­thing we’ve nev­er seen before. As such, this world of pos­si­bil­i­ties has the poten­tial to strike a chord with any­one, no mat­ter their iden­ti­ty or back­ground. Cin­e­ma is, in short, for everyone.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly that’s not quite the real­i­ty, and there are still huge bar­ri­ers to access­ing film for many, includ­ing geog­ra­phy, finances, and con­sid­er­a­tion of how dis­abil­i­ty impacts the film-view­ing expe­ri­ences. From venues with­out wheel­chair access to the con­tin­ued dif­fi­cul­ty in access­ing cap­tioned and audio-described screen­ings, for many peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties, pop­ping down to catch a film often is far more of a mis­sion than it should be.

Thank­ful­ly there are more peo­ple than ever before ded­i­cat­ed to chang­ing this, cham­pi­oning bet­ter access across the film indus­try, for fans, film­mak­ers, exhibitors and dis­trib­u­tors. Match­box Cine are one such group, spe­cial­is­ing in cre­at­ing access resources and advis­ing com­pa­nies across the indus­try on best prac­tice. They also put on screen­ings too, with past events includ­ing Cage-a-rama and KeanuCon.

Now Match­box Cine have teamed up with Film Hub Wales, Inclu­sive Cin­e­ma, Film Hub Scot­land and the Inde­pen­dent Cin­e­ma Office to cre­ate an amaz­ing new resource based around improv­ing acces­si­bil­i­ty and bring­ing as many films as pos­si­ble to the widest audi­ence. Side­card is an online data­base which con­tains infor­ma­tion about sub­ti­tles, audio descrip­tion and oth­er resources, with the aim of bridg­ing the gaps between film­mak­ers, dis­trib­u­tors and exhibitors, so it’s pos­si­ble to show more cin­e­ma that is acces­si­ble for peo­ple with disabilities.

“As a deaf film lover, I know too well how dif­fi­cult it is to access movie-going due to a lack of acces­si­ble screen­ings, with cin­e­ma pro­vi­sion of cap­tioned screen­ings far and few in between,” says Char­lie Lit­tle, Match­box Cine’s in-house access con­sul­tant. ​“As some­one work­ing in the indus­try, I often come across film­mak­ers and dis­trib­u­tors who have access files for their films, but this avail­abil­i­ty isn’t com­mu­ni­cat­ed to cin­e­mas and exhibitors. When films don’t have access mate­ri­als, some fes­ti­vals and exhibitors take it upon them­selves to com­mis­sion the pro­duc­tion of these files so they can host acces­si­ble screen­ings, and these files don’t hold a lega­cy or aren’t passed on for fur­ther use.”

The web­site con­tains a search­able data­base of films that have mate­ri­als avail­able includ­ing sub­ti­tle tracks and audio descrip­tion files, as well as sug­gest­ed con­tacts for secur­ing these, which is a valu­able resource for any­one look­ing to put on a screen­ing. There’s advice and resources avail­able for film­mak­ers, fes­ti­vals and dis­trib­u­tors about cre­at­ing access mate­ri­als for films as well as best prac­tice, and Side­card also serves as a valu­able reminder that acces­si­bil­i­ty shouldn’t be an after­thought or a lux­u­ry, but rather some­thing con­sid­ered at every step of a film’s lifecycle.