Cinemas to see the light on captions?

Disability advocates are set to use anti-discrimination laws to force cinema owners to provide captions for the deaf and audio descriptions for the blind.
The campaign follows a recent ruling by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), which knocked back an application from the four major cinema chains for an exemption from the anti discrimination laws.
Less than 0.3% of all cinema sessions in Australia are currently accessible to people who are deaf, hard of hearing or who have vision impairments.
Bob Parr from Wallis Cinemas said new digital technology allows for captions to be seen only be the individual patron and do not have to be projected on the screen or affect other patrons. It's a similar story with audio descriptions.
Parr told Adelaide Now that âthe reason the major players are opposing change now is because the technology is about to change.
"We're all going to digital and built into that system will be captioning and audio descriptions at every session."
Lobby group Action on Cinema Access (ACA) wants action now and is urging people with a hearing or sight impairment to lodge a complaint with the AHRC.
ACA spokesperson Dean Barton-Smith explained âby submitting a Complaint Form, people with a disability are sending a message to the cinema industry that we want meaningful access to cinema, not just one film available at three screenings per week at only 35 cinemas around Australia.�?
Bob Parr believes it will cost about $20,000 to install the present technology in one cinema, stating âeverybody in the industry wants to make films available to people with hearing and sight impairments.
"But to install new equipment now would be an enormous expense for technology which will soon be redundant."
The AHRC will release a report on the matter this month.