THE PROJECT

Since 2005 A.I.A.C.E. – Milano has established a service for people carrying visual and hearing impairments. Following the other European countries experiences (such as the English, French or Swedish ones) A.I.A.C.E.- Milano has launched Cinema without barriers®, a project aimed at promoting entertainment programmes for people suffering from a physical or sensorial disability, who can finally share the fun of going to the cinema with friends, relatives and normal users.

Although there have been a few sporadic episodes during festivals or exhibitions, Italy has never provided a continuous subtitling service.

Thanks to the cooperation with Provincia di Milano and Banca del Monte di Lombardia, A.I.A.C.E.- Milano offers a once a month screening in Milan since 2005 and in Bari and Rome since 2008.

Cinema without Barriers® is Cinema for everybody. Going to the cinema is not going to be a luxury reserved only to “normal” users but it has to become a leisure activity open to people carrying visual or hearing impairments.

Up to know a few DVDs have been edited with subtitles and even less with audio commentaries but it hasn’t been possible for disabled people to go to the cinema and watch a movie there. Thanks to a synchronized system, the normal film projection is enriched with additional data, therefore it can be enjoyed by the whole audience. Blind people receive an infrared headphone through which they can listen to the audio commentary; actions, moods, situations, colours and landscapes are described by a voice over. Who listens through the headphones can benefit from soundtrack descriptions necessary to better understand the film, without covering dialogues and important background noises. For deaf people there are subtitles on the screen containing, besides the text of the dialogue, even captions with indications about noises, music and tone of the dialogues.

Using DTS technology a copious number of films, chosen together with disabled people associations, can be prepared by Raggio Verde, our technical partner and applied in almost any cinema of the Country.

Cinema without Barriers® fights to break disabled people isolation; everybody can enjoy going to the cinema!