By Redha Sardar
ANKARA, April 25 (KUNA) -- Ankara's third Accessible Film Festival, which kicked off a couple of days ago, was exceptional this year because many of the festival's activities were directed to people with special needs among the audience.
Speaking to KUNA, Ezgi Yalinalp, the festival's program coordinator, said this year festival is different from the past two because it focuses on the two categories of people with special needs, those visually impaired or with hearing problems, to ensure they would have an equal chance for to enjoy culture life.
She added that the two categories could not attend and watch movies in the past festivals because movies lacked special features like translation to explain the stories and films description.
Yalinalp noted that this year films, which run until the 26th of this month, will be presented for the first time in Turkey with audio descriptions for the hearing impaired category and detailed translation and interpreting sign language feature, highlighting in bold on the screen for the visually impaired.
Yalinalp explained that the management team was keen to provide the latest Turkish and international films which won awards, noting that the new features of audio description and sign language were prepared three months ago.
Yalinalp said the festival includes performances of short films, documentaries and children's films in addition to the panel discussions, workshops in which some directors, actors and technical crew for movies in general involved.
For her part, visually impaired student Sebiha Oztork expressed her utmost pleasure for participating in a workshop designed for scenarists.
Oztork said writing scenarios is easy and simple to those with big imagination, adding that she engaged in a similar experience with her teacher in school.
The Festival aims to create an atmosphere where audience with or without disabilities can watch films together and to raise awareness about disability issues.
The workshops and Question and Answer sessions which are held after the screenings with the directors and film crews during the Festival are accompanied by sign language interpreters.
Therefore all moviegoers whether they have disabilities or not can follow a film festival together, while all screenings are free and open to the public. (end) rs.mb