Monthly Archive for August, 2008

I found out there’s a group that hosts Movie Nights on Saturdays in various locations around the SF Bay Area. I called the Film Night in the Park people to ask if they could turn on the subtitles when they show movies (they project them off a DVD) and they told me “we only only use the DVD subtitles when it’s a foreign language film or in sing alongs during the music.”

I pointed out that this was an event being held on City-owned property (a public park) and it should be accessible, and they said “send us an email and I’ll pass it to the Advisory board” and then hung up on me.

I emailed Catherine Stefani, who works for the office of Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier in SF City Hall. (Alioto-Pier is disabled and is a huge advocate for the disabled.)

She responded to my email in ten minutes, which is very impressive. She said:

Thank you again Kathryn for emailing us about this. I spoke with the Film in the Park people and it seems they feel subtitles would “diminish the experience for non-deaf people.” The Supervisor will introduce a resolution about this on Tuesday to make subtitles a requirement. We’ll keep you informed.

She followed up again on Friday:

I contacted the City Attorney about this and we realized that the ordinance we passed re: closed captioning in public places already addresses this situation. I am going to call the event organizers to let them know and to make them aware of the civil and criminal penalties outlined in the legislation.