The 10th Accessible Film Festival aims to provide equal access to culture to all people regardless of disabilities, presenting distinguished feature and short films to its audience at Eskişehir's Yunus Emre Cultural Center (YEE) is now moving to Türkiye's capital Ankara.
As Türkiye's first and only accessible film festival, the unique project sets out with the understanding of equal access to the cinema, also offering every film in accessible locations with audio descriptions for the visually impaired, and with sign language and detailed subtitles for the hearing-impaired.
Bringing together the prominent, award-winning films of Turkish and world cinema with the audience, the festival has so far reached more than 180,000 viewers online and physically, with 316 film screenings and 118 side events.
This year's program will present 39 films that are accessible, including the "National Feature Film Competition," "Short Film Competition," "For Children," "Them," "Auditorium" and "Kaleidoscope" selections.
The "Them" selection, which was included in the festival's program for the 10th anniversary of the festival, is about particular people who managed to survive under difficult conditions and who were able to establish themselves by showing the courage to go beyond the standards. Ali Asgari’s "Until Tomorrow," Andreas Dresen’s "Rabia Kurnaz vs. George Bush," and Julie Bezerra Madsen's "All that Remains to be Seen" will be screened as part of this particular selection.
Festival films also will be watched free of charge in the theaters and on the online platform on the days and times announced on the official website. In addition to the film screenings, interviews with film crews in the program will also be accessible on the festival's YouTube channel.
Also, films vying in the "National Feature Film Competition" and the "Short Film Competition" included in the festival program will be entitled to receive the "Best Film," "Best Director" and "Best Screenplay" awards to be determined by jury members, and the "Audience Special Award" which will be decided by viewers.
The winners will be announced with a live event to be broadcast on the festival's YouTube channel on Oct. 22.
