At a screening of The Ride Ahead at the Landmark E-Street Cinema during DC/DOX. Courtesy LikeRightNow Films
When good intentions meet bad assumptions on the film festival circuit
Editor’s Note: The writers are the co-directors and executive producers of The Ride Ahead (2024), a personal-meets-political documentary following Samuel Habib’s navigation into adulthood with the guidance of a community of disability activists. This article was updated on November 26, 2024, with news of the film’s screening at DOC NYC.
In June, we had our Washington, D.C., premiere of The Ride Ahead at DC/DOX Film Festival, following screenings at Hot Docs, Seattle International Film Festival, Independent Film Festival Boston, Sydney Film Festival, and Sheffield DocFest.
Like these other festivals, DC/DOX embraced Samuel’s disability-centered, youthful point of view through his intimate interviews, innovative camera work, and revealing and funny narration. We hoped this DC screening would be a proud, celebratory accomplishment for our personal documentary.
Instead, the event became an accessibility nightmare.
We are telling this story to share proven strategies festivals have utilized to create a better, accessible experience for everyone.
DC/DOX festival organizers had been responsive to several of our requests, like making their website more accessible, showing our film with open captions plus an audio description option, and publicizing those access features on our film listing.
We also repeatedly told them our serious concerns that the venue would not adequately meet the needs of the strong turnout we anticipated from the DC disability community. The theater had six wheelchair seats, plus four companion seats that could be repurposed for wheelchair users—which is more than the legally required minimum, but too few for the anticipated demand of a disability-centered film.
The Ride Ahead sold out the Landmark E-Street Cinema’s largest theater, and our DC community was buzzing about this event. Despite those months of communication with the festival organizers, what unfolded was both dehumanizing and utterly preventable. The sole elevator was so small that it barely accommodated two wheelchairs at a time. The accessible restroom stalls were undersized and didn’t provide enough space for someone to assist a wheelchair user. The festival set up the post-screening panel—which included three wheelchair users—down three steps, making it impossible for those panelists to reach.
Worst of all, our film team was left on our own to try and accommodate the 22 people in wheelchairs who showed up. Nondisabled attendees had to squeeze themselves around wheelchair users to access seats. One person transferred into a seat and had their wheelchair carried out of the theater, which was a recipe for disaster had there been an emergency.
The wheelchair users were packed in like sardines, many perpendicular to the screen. They had to watch our 96-minute film with their necks crooked. The Q&A with our panel was delayed and disjointed, as the audience couldn’t see the co-director and central protagonist Samuel Habib or the panelist and film cast member Bob Williams, who were stuck near the entrance of the theater.
“I just kept thinking, if there’s a fire or a shooting or other emergency—this would be a death trap for me and those around me,” panelist Anna Landre told us.
Before and during the screening, the theater and festival staff were frozen. We were dumbfounded. How could we possibly tell these ticket holders there was no room for them? Why was our film team even put in this position? The months of pre-event communication were intended to prevent this exact situation. With the advanced warning from us, was it possible to find a more suitable venue?
Read on for an innovative approach a prestigious festival is taking for a fall screening of our film.
Inaccessibility Should Not Be the Norm
The Ride Ahead is drawing passionate disabled and nondisabled audience members around the world. At previous screenings, 10% to 15% of the audience were wheelchair users. Until DC/DOX, other festivals found a way to make it work by programming our film in their largest and most accessible venues, adding an additional screening, and asking for accommodation requests (for all films) during the ticketing process. And even with those strategies, accessible space was often still tight.
As DC/DOX acknowledged in its public apology, the festival and the Landmark E-Street Cinema came up short in a plethora of ways. But as we continue to travel the film festival circuit, it is becoming clear that inaccessibility is more the norm than an aberration. This is truly an international problem.
The recently released Accessibility Scorecard Impact Report, which provides much needed data culled from film events around the world, found that 73% of respondents experienced some form of inaccessibility in their film festival experience.
These are some of the quotes from the report that reflect the experiences of filmmakers and attendees:
(Attendee/Filmmaker) “I got an email from the festival saying that I was not allowed to bring [ASL] interpreters, and that there was a 10 day policy to make a request for any accommodations. And that not all films would be captioned (only select films) and that would also require notification in advance. This is not equitable to able-bodied people’s experience of showing up on the day of, and being fully accessible.”
(Attendee/Press) “This year, accessibility features [for each film] were not publicized (or even available upon request) until after ticket sales, meaning people with disabilities were left behind entirely.”
Who else would it be acceptable to exclude?
Access is not optional. Ensuring inclusion for disabled creatives and attendees is not a “nice-to-do” or suggestion. By law, in many parts of the world, accessibility for ALL must be an essential and well-executed component of festival and event planning. As film festivals increasingly tout their values of inclusion and access for makers, they must ensure these values for disabled audiences as well. Just as software and video game developers have learned that it is less expensive and cumbersome to build in accessibility from the start, no festival should leave accessibility to chance after programming, production, and other pieces are completed.
Access is not new. The Americans with Disabilities Act is 34 years old. Disabled activists and organizations like 1IN4 Coalition and FWD-Doc have been calling for greater accessibility and employment in the entertainment industry for years, with a focus on film festivals. But merely being compliant with the ADA or other bare-minimum stipulations does not mean that a venue will be adequate in a festival environment.
Will festivals decide to avoid programming any disabled created or focused films? Would they do so because they believe that accommodating disabled filmmakers and audiences is overly difficult or too expensive? Is this a legitimate fear on our part? We hope not, because there are proven accessibility solutions. Plus, truly inclusive festivals will see increased ticket sales from the approximately 1 in 4 people who are disabled, along with their companions, and from general audiences that want to see new, unique, and provocative films.
Strategies for Access and Inclusion
There are ways to ensure safely accommodating all participants and guests at these events. Many disability-centered films came before The Ride Ahead, and many will come after us. There is a clear roadmap:
- Start by reading the Accessibility Scorecard Impact Report. Publicize and encourage your attendees to fill out the scorecard themselves. And sign up to receive data and feedback for your festival.
- Study the accessibility pages and features at “the five most accessible festivals” that the report named:
- Superfest Disability Film Festival
- BlackStar Film Festival
- International Queer Women of Color Film Festival
- Access:Horror Film Festival
- New Orleans Film Festival
- Continue on to the FWD-DOC Engagement Pack.
These resources contain tips and specific actions to make your festival or event accessible to all. A few examples:
- Hire D/deaf and disabled programmers, programming advisors, and professional access advisors or coordinators.
- Make sure every venue has sufficient space for mobility devices (ideally at least 10% of total audience capacity should be wheelchair accessible).
- Pick venues with excellent existing accessibility, including highly functioning elevators, accessible stage areas, and family/gender neutral restrooms.
- Use live captions (aka CART) for virtual and in-person panels and Q&As.
- Provide a sign language interpreter for post screening discussions, introductions, and panels.
- Advertise your accessible screenings and events, and note the details of access provision on every webpage, press release, announcement (e.g., “This screening has open captions and a live captioned Q&A”).
- Ask ticket/pass buyers what their access requirements are early in the ticketing process.
At the outset of the planning process, festivals and film events must (and often do) anticipate the needs of their audiences. This will help them select screening, workshop, and party venues that are better suited for their festival community.
Get creative. Many highly accessible venues do exist—at some theaters, universities, community spaces, hotels, and more.
Here’s a recent development that gives us hope: DOC NYC programmed The Ride Ahead for its fall 2024 lineup and partnered with ReelAbilities NYC to host our November 15 screening at the highly accessible ReelAbilities auditorium, with capacity for up to 40 wheelchair users and staffing with expertise in event access and accommodations. The event included ASL interpretation and CART captioning. This is an innovative, win-win model that other festivals can follow.
Every community deserves respect and equity at film festivals. Let’s pave the way together.
For more information about The Ride Ahead and the authors of this article, please see our press kit.
Samuel Habib (he/him) co-directed The Ride Ahead and the Emmy Award-winning My Disability Roadmap, a 2022 New York Times Op-Doc. He is a community college student and has presented nationally on disability rights. Samuel has GNAO1 Neurodevelopmental Disorder, a rare genetic disorder that causes cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and speech challenges.
Dan Habib (he/him) produced and co-directed The Ride Ahead and the Emmy Award-winning My Disability Roadmap. He is also the director, producer, and cinematographer of more than 20 other feature and short films, including Intelligent Lives, Who Cares About Kelsey?, Mr. Connolly Has ALS, and Including Samuel. He is the founder of LikeRightNow Films.
Sara Bolder (she/her) co-produced the 2021 Oscar-nominated documentary, Crip Camp, which won the 2020 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award and a 2021 Peabody Award. Sara is a veteran sound editor, working on Star Wars: Episode One and The English Patient, and winning Golden Reel Awards from the Motion Picture Sound Editors for Best Sound Editing for Jurassic Park and Saving Private Ryan.
Jim LeBrecht (he/him) co-directed and co-produced, with Nicole Newnham, the 2021 Oscar-nominated documentary, Crip Camp. LeBrecht is a co-founder of FWD-Doc and the 1in4 Coalition, two organizations that support people with disabilities in the entertainment business.