The Athens Open Air Film Festival and the Athens International Film Festival - Opening Night join forces with the Artists with Disabilities Movement for accessible cinema.
The two biggest festivals in the city, the Athens Open Air Film Festival (June-September) and the Athens International Film Festival (23/9 - 4/10 September), join forces with the Artist with Disabilities Movement in a continuing effort to improve accessibility.
Aiming at unhindered access for every film lover/filmmaker across the board, this new alliance will implement a series of measures to ensure maximum accessibility in venues and attendance.
5th Athens Open Air Film Festival
The organizers of the 5th Athens Open Air Film Festival are working with the traffic police in order to ensure:
up to three (3) parking sports for people with disabilities
- that no car with a special disabilities badge receives a parking ticket during the screenings
- that all cars that have taken up assigned disability parking spots are moved
The venues where the above measures will be implement include:
- The Greek Film Archive
- The Kolonos Open-air Theater
- The Railway Carriage Theater
- The National Archaeological Museum of Athens
- The Byzantine and Christian Museum
- The Numismatic Museum
- Avdi Square
- Kotzia Square
- Akadimia Platonos (Plato’s Academy)
- Dionysiou Areopagitou Precinct
In each screening, 10 front-row seats will be reserved for people with disabilities.
The festival program is already available in Braille, while it has also been printed in a larger font for people with vision impairments. Print-outs are available at all screenings.
«Revanche» by Nikos Vergitsis (2/09) will screen with captions for the deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (SDH), while the festival’s remaining three Greek films, «Hard Goodbyes: My Father» by Penny Panayotopoulou (22/07), «ROM» by Menelaos Karamaghiolis (25/08) and «The Spring Gathering» by Dimos Avdeliodis (31/8), will be consecutively translated into the sign language by Thodora Tsapoiti.
21st Athens International Film Festival – Opening Nights
Following the «The Uncharted Territory of Disability: Universal Access to the Art of Filmmaking» workshop last year, the festival once again joins forces with the Artists with Disabilities Movement.
The 21st Athens International Film Festival – Opening Nights is making a conscious effort to screen as many Greek films as possible with captions for the deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (SDH), while consecutive translation into the sign language will be available during the Opening and Closing Nights, as well as all masterclasses.
Moreover, the festival has already scheduled a special gala featuring Pantelis Voulgaris’ «Little England» with audio description for people with visual disabilities - the first screening of its kind in Greece.
The festival’s daily schedule will be printed in Braille, as well as a larger font for people with vision disabilities, available on the official website (www.aiff.gr) in pdf and HTML5.
Last but not least, entrance to the festival screenings for people with disabilities will be free of charge.
The Artists with Disabilities Movement and the true meaning of Disability
The Artists with Disabilities movement is a collective aiming to ensure the participation of people with disabilities in local cultural events, both as spectators/listeners and creative content providers. Artists with disabilities have produced a rich and varied body of work that incorporates the collective experience of disability and contributes towards the cultural landscape of the country, promoting the struggle for human rights.
People with disabilities include individuals with physical, sensory, and cognitive or developmental impairments, activity limitations and participation restrictions, which could hinder their involvement in society on an equal basis to other people. According to the social model of disability, people with impairments are social, cultural and educational outcasts, largely due to systemic barriers, negative attitudes and exclusion by the state, which does not consider disability a part of human adversity.
Starting in 2011, the Artists with Disabilities Movement has taken action on several cultural fronts, using artistic activities to familiarize local communities with the day-to-day reality of disability as part of the human condition, as they consider art and self-expression to be the cornerstones of democracy, building open-minded societies with no dividing lines
