From:	Ximena Alvarez-Mendez [
Sent:	Monday, 7 December 2009 4:12 PM
To:	disabdis
Subject:	cinema captioning_opposition to exemption

I have been made aware that the Cinema Industry has applied for an exemption from the 
Disability Discrimination Act in relation to captioning for the next two and a half years. 
According to the email I’ve received it would mean that if accepted, deaf and hard of hearing 
people will lose their right to complain about the lack of captioning at any of the 125 cinemas 
owned by Village, Hoyts, Reading and Greater Union Cinemas for the next 2.5 years.  If 
accepted, captioning will be offered at 35 cinemas just 3 times a week (which translates to one 
movie a week, mostly off peak - just 0.3% of the estimated 40,000 films screened by these four 
major cinemas each week).  

I sincerely hope that this is not true and if such application is correct that this request is not 
accepted. 
Deaf, hearing impaired, hard of hearing do rely on captions especially for movies where there’s 
constant background music or noise over dialog or when lips/ face cannot be seen to extract 
more information.
Reducing the number of captioned movies will only increase the social and intellectual gap 
between individuals with normal hearing and the ones that rely on vision to assist their 
communication.
I want to believe that the cinema industry and our society can work together to 
reduce this gap instead.
Kind regards,

Ximena Alvarez-Mendez
Audiologist
Hearing and Balance Centre/ St Vincent's Hospital
www.hearingbalance.com.au