Access Granted: Creativity and Tools for Inclusive Filmmaking

What is needed to make your short film accessible to all audiences? What creative choices are available when planning these elements? Learn how to incorporate accessibility tools into your workflow from pre-production to post, allowing for broader engagement with your work. Discover different methods you can use to create audio descriptions and get an early look at a new AI-powered tool for creating captions in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Panelists

Matt Lauterbach
Editor, Accessibility Producer

Matt Lauterbach is a filmmaker and accessible media artist. He founded All Senses Go in 2020 as part of an effort to build a filmmaking community that prioritizes access to captions, audio description, and accessible websites and screenings. All Senses Go clients have included Sundance Film Festival, International Documentary Association, SFFILM Festival, Full Spectrum Features, Kartemquin Films, and more. As a documentary film editor, Matt has contributed to over a dozen documentaries, including his most recent credit, For the Left Hand (2021). He is an Adjunct Faculty member in the School of Cinematic Arts at DePaul University in Chicago, where he recently taught one of the nation’s first courses in Accessible Cinema.

Reveca Torres
Artist, Filmmaker, Accessibility Advocate

Reveca Torres is an artist, filmmaker and disability advocate. She is a 2023 Firelight Media Doc Lab Fellow and was a Kartemquin Films Diverse Voices in Docs fellow (2017) and selected for Kartemquin + Hulu Accelerator program in 2020. In 2020 Reveca was one of four fellows for International Documentary Association’s (IDA) Documentary Magazine Editorial Fellowship and was awarded the inaugural Craig Neilsen Visionary Prize for her work in art and advocacy. She is on IDA’s Nonfiction Access Initiative board and member of FWD-Doc. Reveca was a 3Arts fellow in 2018, a 3Arts awardee in 2020, and a 3Arts Next Level recipient in 2022. She currently serves on 3Arts Artist Advisory Board and is a board member at Artist Communities Alliance. Reveca is the founder and Executive Director of BACKBONES, an organization helping people with spinal cord injury and disabilities and co-director of ReelAbilities Film Festival Chicago. Reveca has curated touring photography and art exhibitions that showcase the work of people with disabilities and bring awareness to disability rights. She uses painting, illustration, photography, film, movement, and other media as a form of expression and a tool for advocacy and social justice.

Moderated by Christy LeMaster, CineYouth Director