Disabilities, Representation, and Film

Celebrate the historic civil rights law Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that was signed into law in July 1990. Join us at the Academy Museum for a full day of workshops,  screenings, performances, and conversations centered around bringing awareness to Disability, Representation, and Accessibility in Film. 

 To request accommodations, complete the form  here. 

 The program is free with your general admission ticket. Access to each workshop, tour, and theater program is included in the general admission ticket.  

Schedule   

Netflix Lounge | L2 
10:30am–3:30pm | Drop-in Sensory Session 
Experience elements of moviemaking at the Academy Museum through a guided tactile experience for visitors. A variety of movie props and filmmaking objects can be examined through touch.    

Level 3 
Noon–12:45pm | ASL Interpreted Tour 
Join a museum educator with American Sign Language interpreters for an ASL Interpreted Tour of the museum's core exhibition, Stories of Cinema. Educators will discuss cinema's wide-ranging contributions to the world.  

Level 2 
1–1:30pm | Visual Description Tour 
The Visual Description Tour will highlight objects or galleries in Stories of Cinema. Museum educators will provide a verbal overview for visitors.  

WORKSHOPS  

Netflix Lounge | L2  
11–12:30 pm | Drop-In Workshop: Visual Description 
We welcome visitors to join museum educators and explore writing visual descriptions for a film. Visual Description, similar to Image Description, is a technique used to make visual media like movies, TV, websites, social media, or artwork in museums more accessible to people who are blind or have low vision by describing how things appear. Participants can practice techniques to examine and describe, in careful detail, still images from a film. 

Shirley Temple Education Studio | LL1 
11am–3pm, 3:30pm | Drop-In Workshop: Tactile Filmmaking 
The Tactile Filmmaking workshops are interactive and accessible workshops to learn about direct-on-film animation techniques. Participants will collaborate on creating vibrant moving-image collages on 16mm film using simple materials like markers, tape, pushpins, and ink. At the end of the workshop, the individual strips of film will be spliced together and screened through a 16mm film projector, bringing together a community-created and truly collaborative film.  

Tactile film screening at 3:30pm | TMT Lobby 

PERFORMANCE 

Sidney Poitier Grand Lobby | 3:40pm | Infinite Flow! 

Performance by the award-winning Los Angeles–based nonprofit and professional dance company Infinite Flow Dance! Featuring disabled and nondisabled dancers with diverse, intersectional identities, Infinite Flow's mission is to advance disability inclusion, one dance at a time.

Screening and Conversation

David Geffen Theater
2pm | Shorts Screening

A selection of short films centering on disability representation in film. Curated and introduced by activist, filmmaker, and Co-Director of DisArt, Lawrence Carter-Long. Special thanks to ReelAbilities Film Festival for their support on this program.

Total program runtime: 80 min.

An Irish Goodbye
DIRECTED BY: Tom Berkeley, Ross White. 2022. 23 min. United Kingdom. Color. DCP.
Please note: This film contains strong language.

Night Ride
DIRECTED BY: Eirik Tveiten. 2020. 15 min. Norway. Color. DCP.

Rain in my Head
DIRECTED BY: Chrissy Marshall. 2023. 5 min. USA. Color. DCP.

My Eyes are up Here
DIRECTED BY: Nathan Morris. 2022. 14 min. United Kingdom. Color. DCP.
Please note: This film contains strong language.

Just, go!
DIRECTED BY: Pavels Gumennikovs. 2017. 10 min. Latvia. Color. DCP.

David Geffen Theater 
4:30pm |  Disabilities, Representation, and Film Conversation 
      
Join us at the Academy Museum for a conversation with activists and filmmakers Lawrence Carter-Long, Jim LeBrecht, along with guest speakers, Nic Novicki, Founder and Director of Easterseals Disability Film Challenge, Jorge R. Gutierrez, Animator and Writer, Kaitlyn Yang, Visual Effects Supervisor, 1IN4 Coalition co-founder and moderated by Award-winning Journalist, Kristen Lopez as they discuss disability representation in film. They will explore the history and accomplishments both on and off screen as well as celebrate the diversity that exists within the community today.  

David Geffen Theater 
6:30pm | Screening. Crip Camp, 2020.
Followed by a Q&A with Jim Lebrecht, and Nicole Newnham, moderated by Kristen Lopez.