Making Festivals More Accessible for Disabled Attendees Just Got Easier With the Festival Scorecard (EXCLUSIVE)
Manori Ravindran International EditorA long-awaited Accessibility Scorecard for film events will be released on Friday, providing a tool that could enable filmmakers and other industry professionals to make festivals more accessible.In order to draw visibility to the inaccessibility of festivals and entertainment industry events, FWD-Doc has partnered with Film Event Accessibility Working Group (FEAW), led by Cassidy Dimon, to begin the collective reporting of data related to accessibility successes and failures. Variety first reported on the initiative following the Cannes Film Festival in May.Dimon, who developed the Scorecard questionnaire, explains that “the burden of explaining inaccessibility” is currently placed on the filmmaker or attendee. “The objective of the Scorecard is to make it as easy as possible for people to provide concise feedback without requiring them to invest even more of their time and labor on improving a festival or event,” she said.Eryn Brown, agent and co-founder of Hollywood campaign group 1IN4 Coalition, added: “Professionals attending festivals should be able to focus on their art or their job, and not have to fight just to get fair access to a room or a stage.”Festivals, filmmakers, professionals, and event attendees can access the Scorecard as an online questionnaire template, where users can provide responses about their experiences with festivals and film events.