Accessibility at the festival

It is estimated that about one million people in Ukraine have hearing or vision impairment, and so need films and cultural events to be available in accessible formats. Every year, we pay special attention to accessibility, because we believe that it concerns every person and should be a key component of all cultural events in Ukraine. At the 20th Docudays UA and Travelling Docudays UA, almost all the films on the festival programs will have descriptive subtitles, and 10 of them will have audio descriptions. All the events of the RIGHTS NOW! human rights protection programme will be accompanied by sign-language interpretation. Therefore, persons with hearing or vision impairments will be able to truly enjoy the films and human rights events during the festival. Accessible films will be presented at offline and online screenings (on the DOCUSPACE platform).

 


 

SCREENINGS WITH AUDIO DESCRIPTION


Audio description (or visual description) is one of the accessible formats; this provides a specially created audio track describing the visual part of the film for persons with vision impairments or other types of disabilities.


To use the format at offline screenings, you need to download the Earcatch application to your phone. The application synchronises the audio description to the film.

 

At the 20th Docudays UA special edition, sound descriptions will be available for the following films:

To turn on the audio description for the movie in the DOCUSPACE online cinema, you need to click on the button marked AD next to the player.


In addition, DOCUSPACE online cinema has a special mode for visually impaired visitors. Switch to it by clicking on the corresponding mark in the upper left corner of the website.

 

 

DESCRIPTIVE SUBTITLES

The use of descriptive subtitles (or SDH, Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard-of-hearing) is an established practice at Docudays UA. These are subtitles with special marks, symbols and additional text that reflect the sound part of the film (music and additional sounds). Such subtitles allow people with hearing impairments to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the film and follow its content. This year, almost all our films have descriptive subtitles.

 

SIGN LANGUAGE INTERPRETATION

All events of the RIGHTS NOW! human rights protection programme, as well as the opening ceremony of the 20th Docudays UA, will be accompanied by sign language interpretation.
21 INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL
 31 — 9 
May
June 2024