How did students get visually impaired, how did the tourist family see

Recently held abilityfest2025 India International Disability Film Festival, PVR-Inox Sathyam Cinema, in Roypetah, about the importance of access to films, saw the festival chairperson Reveathi in a conversation with Cube Cinema’s co-founder, Senthil Kumar.

The conversation was followed for screening a special audio details of Tamil blockbuster Tourist Family, Cube was displayed by cinema as part of the festival.

The audience included students from the National Association for the Blind, Nathrodya, Karna Vidyalayala, Tamil Nadu Blind Football Association and Cheshire Home.

The post-screening event discussed the importance of access to Indian cinema with closed captioning for focus on audio details in Indian cinema and for persons with visual and hearing loss. It also highlighted the rights of individuals with India’s 2016 Disability Act, which makes these features compulsory for multilingual films starting from September 2024 and for all Indian films by March 2026.

“For the first time we did for an audio details Taare Zameen ParRevathi said, “A lot of blind people told us that it is good to watch a film without a friend or a partner, telling me what is happening on the screen.”

Senthil reported that technology can provide wide availability facilities without major theater amendments. “To get audio details tools available to theaters, it is necessary to reserve about 1-2% of your seats, but it is not a limit because new technologies have created it to equip each seat with audio details or closed captioning.”

For closed captioning and audio details, he explained, “It is encoded in DCP (Digital Cinema Package) in such a way that people who want it can be on the headphone … You can enjoy the expressions of the audience, the feelings of the people around you, and listen to the film described in your ear.”

He says that this is something that will increase the experience of 6-9% of the people, “which is just a number large and we are ignoring that market only on commercial basis. It was wrong to do, but in the end, at least the law ensures that everyone gets their rights, and it also helps commercially for every filmmaker.

The discussion also emphasizes that technology like mobile phone apps can provide these accessibility features widely without comprehensive theater amendments. “The technologies that are being adopted today, in fact there is no limit on the number of people in the audience that can use these devices because they are mobile phones-based; it is your own personal device that you will bring to the theater.”