SFF’s online Screenability program highlights sustainable accessibility

SFF's revised virtual program contains festival favourite, the screenability stream. What does accessibility for disabled artists look like in the digital age?

After formally cancelling the 2020 festival, SFF has since announced a lauded, smaller program over the same dates, 10-21 June. This is a common theme across the arts, nationally and internationally as the pandemic continues to decimate festivals, performances, and live events of all kinds. For SFF, the program looks quite different; but it still returns festival favourite, the Screenability program, now in its third year. With it, comes a host of new questions about accessibility in the digital age.

availability = accessibility
 
Director Anthea Williams’ short film, Safety Net, is featured alongside Diving In and Groundhog Night in the Screenability programming stream, which features three films made by emerging filmmakers who have a disability. She is understandably a little disappointed to have missed out on the thrill of a physical program, sharing that, ‘of course I’d love to see an audience watch my film. Directors learn so much from that; you can really feel how an audience journeys through a story.’ 

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Jini Maxwell is a writer and curator who lives in Naarm. They are an assistant curator at ACMI, where they also host the Women & Non-binary gamers club. They write about videogames and the people who make them. You can find them on Twitter @astroblob