Deaf Movie Fans Sues Celebration! Cinemas

Deaf News: Celebration! Cinemas sued for failing to accommodate Deaf, Hard of Hearing in Michigan.

BENTON HARBOR, MI -- West Michigan movie fans who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing are suing Celebration! Cinemas for discrimination, alleging their Benton Harbor theater fails to provide widely available captioning accommodations.

Graham Forsey, 23, a St. Joseph resident who is Deaf, alongside the National Association of the Deaf filed a lawsuit Monday against Loeks Theatres, Inc., also known as Celebration! Cinemas. Forsey says he asked the Benton Harbor theater multiple times in writing to provide captioning and Celebration! Cinemas failed to accommodate, according to the lawsuit.

Read the full lawsuit here.

“It’s about access," said Mary Vargas, an attorney representing the plaintiffs. "It’s about Mr. Forsey and members of the National Association of the Deaf being able to go to the movies.”

A non-profit representing more than 137,000 Michiganders who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing, the NAD is suing Celebration! Cinemas with Forsey stating this failure to provide captioning technology violates a basic civil right as specified under the Americans with Disabilities Act among other laws. Meanwhile, Forsey says he is forced to drive about an hour to another movie theater which accommodates him.

Celebration! Cinemas responded to FOX 17 Monday and confirmed their Benton Harbor theater does not have any captioning accommodations, releasing this statement:

"We’re fully aware of the issues surrounding this complaint and new technologies will help resolve it very soon.

The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) has been working actively with advocacy groups to clarify updated standards for supporting the Deaf community. These standards are currently being reviewed by the Department of Justice, and we expect a ruling from them in the very near future.

Celebration! Cinema is committed to continuing to improve services for all of our guests, and we are looking forward to the approval of these standards so we can continue to invest in closed captioning technology. Currently, we have assisted listening devices in all locations and closed captioning in our Grand Rapids and Lansing, MI markets. Benton Harbor and other locations will receive captioning equipment in the coming months upon the adoption of the new standards.

Technological solutions for visually and hearing impaired guests are evolving at a rapid rate. We look forward to working collaboratively with NATO and advocacy groups both locally and nationally on this topic.

Steve VanWagoner, VP of Marketing & Public Relations, Celebration! Cinema"

Closed captioning technology is readily available at other movie theaters. It ranges from open captioning an entire audience would see, to captioning glasses, or individual devices that fit onto a theater seat.

"It's frustrating because it’s been so many years since this was a legal requirement for theaters," said Vargas. "There are roughly 137,000 people in the state of Michigan who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and guess what? They’re just like everybody else. They like to go to the movies.”

SOURCE - FOX NEWS

Deaf Cinemagoers 'The Tribe' Reviewed

WATCH: What's it like for Deaf cinemagoers? 'The Tribe' reviewed.

Violent, sexually explicit Ukrainian film 'The Tribe' has no speaking or subtitles and all dialogue is conducted through sign language. Jason Om and Lateline asked five Deaf people for their opinions of this ground-breaking movie.

The Tribe / ПЛЕМЯ Official Trailer Drama Movie HD.

Parental guidance is advised, the features might contain content may not be suitable for all children.

A Deaf teenager enters a specialized boarding school where, to survive, he becomes part of a wild organization the tribe. His love for one of the concubines will unwillingly lead him to break all the unwritten rules within the Tribe's hierarchy.

'The Tribe' documentary film is a 2014 Ukrainian drama film directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy. The film is set in a boarding school for Deaf children, where a new arrival is drawn into an institutional system of organised crime, involving robbery and prostitution. He crosses a dangerous line when he falls for one of the girls to whom he's assigned as pimp. The film is entirely in Ukrainian Sign Language with no subtitles.

It won the Nespresso Grand Prize, as well as the France 4 Visionary Award and the Gan Foundation Support for Distribution Award at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival's International Critics' Week section.

Director and Writer: Miroslav Slaboshpitsky
Stars: Grigoriy Fesenko, Yana Novikova, Rosa Babiy and Full Cast & Crew

Follow 'The Tribe' Movie:
The Tribe - IMDb - http://imdb.com/title/thetribe
Facebook - https://facebook.com/filmtribe

Order Movies & DVDs:
The Tribe - ComingSoon.net
The Tribe (2015) - Rotten Tomatoes

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TIFF.net | The Tribe
Has The Tribe Changed What A Deaf Film Can Be?
'The Tribe' ('Plemya'): Cannes Review
“This Film Is A Big Deal.” Ted Evans on The Tribe
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No More Savagery, Please: A Deaf Person's Review Of The Film The Tribe
The Tribe (2014 film) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Deaf Film 'The Tribe' Official Trailer
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Miracle on 34th Street Deaf Girl & Santa Scene

High-Definition quality video of a little Deaf girl (Sami) and Santa (Richard Attenborough) signing in ASL "Miracle On 34th Street" scene.

Miracle On 34th Street (1994) - In the scene, a young Deaf girl is brought to sit on the lap of Kriss Kringle at the fictional Cole's department store. Kringle (Richard Attenborough), who hasn't been told of the child's disability, asks her what she would like for Christmas.

After her mother informs him that her child is Deaf and that all she wanted was to sit on Santa's lap, Kringle summons his seasonal powers and begins a sign-language (American Sign Language) conversation.

The stoic girl is transformed on camera with a delighted, surprised smile, signing back her answers, much to the tearful surprise of her mother and more than a few audience members.

As it happens, there is something even more touching about the scene: It is acted by 5-year-old Sami Krieger, the second of three Deaf children born to Jay and Linda Krieger, both of whom are also Deaf.

In the living room of their modest duplex in Hanover Park, a middle-class suburb of Chicago, Sami fidgets in her father's lap, grappling with a temporary case of acute shyness, while her sisters Amanda, 6, and Wanda, 1, look on.

Jay Krieger, with the help of a sign-language interpreter, says of making the film, "The experience was wonderful, really great. The (John) Hughes (production) people treated Sami like royalty, giving her a trailer with a star that had her name on it, which made her feel special," he says.... Read The Full Story.

Related Signing Santa:
Signing Santa Brightens Deaf Girl's Holiday
Signing Santa To Make Girl's Wish Come True
Miracle on 34th Street Deaf Girl & Santa Scene
KODA Girl In Kindergarten Holiday Concert
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Deaf Moviegoers In Glasses With Captioning

Many people go to the movies for the special effects and dialogue. But what if you were Deaf.

SACRAMENTO, California -- Regal Entertainment Group has introduced glasses developed by Sony for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing with closed captioning at the bottom that sync to the sound of the movie you’re watching.

To activate this feature, press the "CC" button.

Lois Diamond and Linda Cook are two of 38 million Deaf, or hearing impaired people. Lois likes the glasses, she says any new technology is wonderful.

Regal theaters purchased them for about six thousand theaters nationwide, including Sacramento. Lois said before visual aids like it, she wouldn’t go to the movies much.

Regal invested more than $10 million dollars into the glasses. Each one is about $1,750. They’re free for customers though. Lois thinks Regal’s glasses are a step forward, but not perfect.

She says she noticed the captions appeared at the top of the screens, and didn’t like that... Read The Full Story.

Related: Sony New Subtitle Glasses For Deaf Moviegoers

Sony New Subtitle Glasses For Deaf Moviegoers

Sony ‘subtitle glasses’ could be a hit with Deaf moviegoers, Sony’s entertainment access glasses utilizing unique holographic technology.

The movie industry’s transformation to digital technology has created an opportunity to efficiently deliver closed caption data to movie patrons. This coincides with large demand from people with hearing difficulties to watch movies more easily and enjoyably.

Sony has therefore developed entertainment access glasses utilizing its unique holographic technology: the STW-C140GI Entertainment Access Glasses with Audio and, as part of this solution, the STWA-C101 Data Transmitter. When wearing this stylish and lightweight see-through eyewear, users can see closed caption text seemingly superimposed onto the movie picture that they’re watching on screen - it’s a natural subtitle-movie experience.

In addition, as the captioning glasses’ receiver box is equipped with an audio assist function, this solution is useful not only for people with hearing difficulties but also for people with visual impairments - both can enjoy movies far more than ever before... READ MORE.

Visit Sony for more details: HERE.

invisibleCAPTIONS - A presentation of our newly innovative product. Please share this video with every single person on the planet you know!

I realize that many of you have many great questions- we are currently working on our own website and we will be posting updates and answering some questions on our Facebook page so please stay tuned and check out more information there. Our transcript for this video can be viewed here.

Cinema subtitle glasses give promise to Deaf film fans - People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing have long complained that going to watch a film can be an unsatisfactory experience, with subtitled films on at unsociable times and often suffering from technical problems.

But a solution could soon available in the form of special glasses which allow the wearer to see subtitles directly in front of their eyes, giving them the freedom of choice afforded to hearing people. Graham Satchell reports.

Cinemas are letting Deaf people down.

Subtitled screenings are unreliable and hard to find, but digital technology means cinemas now have little excuse, Imagine the following scenario. You go to the cinema, buy your ticket and your popcorn and after taking your seat, sit through 20 minutes of trailers and adverts before the start of the film. But, as the opening scene begins, you realise the sound's not working, and you can't understand a thing.

The cinema staff run around fiddling with wires before deciding they can't fix it and, with that being the last screening of the night, you toddle off home with an apology and a free ticket for a future show. You'd feel gutted, wouldn't you? I mean, how often does that happen? Maybe if you were a glass half-full kind of person you'd figure that you were unlucky – you caught them on a bad night.

For Deaf people, the chain of events I've described isn't just a one-off – it's happened to nearly every deaf cinema-goer I know. Except it's not the sound that goes missing, it's subtitles. Which we need to understand the film. Right now, Deaf film fans have very little trust left in cinema chains, and many people I know have stopped bothering; they prefer to watch DVDs... READ MORE.

Related Articles:
Deaf want a fair hearing on film and TV subtitles
Cinema subtitle glasses give promise to deaf film fans
Subtitle Glasses Could Make Movie-Going More Practical for the Deaf
The Hidden Disability: Subtitled Films
Sony ‘subtitle glasses’ could be a hit with deaf moviegoers

Realated Links:
Follow Deaf Access Films - https://twitter.com/deafaccessfilms
Deaf Access Films - http://deafaccessfilms.com
Subtitled Cinema - http://yourlocalcinema.com/odeon.wim.article.html
Your Local Cinema - http://yourlocalcinema.com