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The annual Access All Areas Film Festival, showcasing Australian short and feature films with accessible features, has announced its program for 2012. It includes a number of independent productions and the biggest Australian movie of the year, The Sapphires.

The world’s largest free cinema festival for young people is being held in the UK this October. In its 17^th year, National Schools Film Week will host more events with services for students with hearing and vision loss than ever before. This reflects the cinema industry’s expansion of captioned and audio described sessions worldwide through the conversion to digital cinema.

Media Access Australia’s accessible cinema questionnaire is gathering feedback from moviegoers on technical issues for closed captions and audio description. By providing your answers you’ll not only be helping improve cinema access, but also go in the draw to win a new release DVD of a Hollywood blockbuster movie.

Event Cinemas commences captioned and audio described movie sessions at seven new locations from today, bringing the national total of accessible cinemas to 55.

Following on from the successful 2011 rollout of captioned and audio described cinema locations under the Cinema Access Implementation Plan, the first six months of 2012 have delivered more locations but fallen behind the expected schedule.

The biennial Other Film Festival has announced its return in 2012, showing films that are not only accessible, but tell stories of people with disabilities from around the world.

Water for Elephants, the 2011 blockbuster movie starring Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson, will screen with open audio description at Reading Cinemas Dandenong Plaza in late July.

For something different, Media Access Australia’s Eliza Cussen takes readers behind the scenes at one of Sydney’s most beloved theatres to reveal how audio description has become a vital part of what they do.

The Accessible Cinema Advisory Group (ACAG) is a body convened by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs to oversee and advise on the implementation of captioning and audio description in Australian cinemas. The group has released a fourth report to the public from its meeting held in March.

Sony has officially launched its much anticipated cinema access technology which displays captions on a pair of glasses, replicating the look of open captions. One cinema chain in the USA has already signed on to install the device.

The newly expanded Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Sydney has greatly enhanced its services for blind and vision impaired art enthusiasts with a new program of audio described tours.