Disability Screen Office Releases "All-Access Pass: A Roadmap for Festival & Screen Industry Event Accessibility"
TORONTO, September 14, 2026 - The Disability Screen Office (DSO) has launched "All-Access Pass: A Roadmap for Festival & Screen Industry Event Accessibility", a new resource designed to help festivals and other screen industry events across Canada become more accessible to disabled creatives, audiences, staff, volunteers, and industry professionals.
Created as part of the DSO's Screen Festival Accessibility Program (SFAP), All-Access Pass provides practical guidance for integrating accessibility into the design, delivery, and evaluation of screen industry events. The guide was developed with the generous support of Telefilm Canada and informed by the DSO's multi-year accessibility work with four partner festivals: Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), Banff World Media Festival (BANFF), Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and Reelworld Film Festival.
All-Access Pass is designed as an actionable roadmap for organizations at different stages of their accessibility journey. It outlines how to identify and address physical, communications, systemic, and attitudinal barriers; consult disabled communities; develop accessibility policies and plans; implement specific access measures; and make accessibility an organization-wide responsibility. The guide also includes a multi-year framework that helps organizations start with achievable low-cost and no-cost measures and progressively expand their accessibility practices over time.
Key topics include:
- How to assess existing accessibility practices, set goals, develop accessibility policies and plans, and embed responsibility for accessibility across an organization.
- Guidance on consulting local disability communities, establishing accessibility advisory committees, working with accessibility professionals, and ensuring disability representation within festival teams.
Strategies for addressing physical and information barriers through accessible venue selection, accessibility audits, wayfinding, accessible digital communications, and other practices. - Guidance for incorporating disability inclusion into film selection, programming, panels, presentations, and other artistic and curatorial decisions.
- A five-year framework to help organizations prioritize, implement, evaluate, and expand accessibility measures based on their resources, audiences, and operational realities.
- Rather than offering a one-size-fits-all checklist, All-Access Pass encourages organizations to build accessibility incrementally and collaboratively, adapting their approach to their communities, resources, and existing practices.
This guide is intended for:
- Film festival and screen industry event organizers looking for practical guidance on making their events more accessible, whether they are just beginning their accessibility journey or building on existing practices.
- Staff and decision-makers across festival and event organizations, including those working in programming, operations, communications, audience services, artist relations, human resources, and other areas where accessibility can be integrated into planning and delivery.
- Organizations hosting screen industry events, including festivals, conferences, markets, awards shows, pitch forums, networking events, and other spaces where industry professionals and audiences come together.
- Industry leaders looking to make a long-term commitment to accessibility by developing organization-wide policies, plans, and practices that support the meaningful participation of disabled creatives and audiences.
Why This Matters
Film festivals and other screen industry events, including conferences, markets, awards shows, pitch forums, and networking events, are cornerstones of the Canadian screen industry. They are places where professionals connect, relationships develop, deals are made, careers advance, and audiences engage with new work.
But accessibility barriers can prevent disabled creatives from fully participating in these spaces. For disabled producers, writers, directors, and other professionals, inaccessible events can limit opportunities for career growth. For disabled audiences, these barriers can limit their engagement with and enjoyment of Canadian film and television.
With 27% of Canadian adults — approximately 8 million people — living with one or more disabilities, accessibility is essential to ensuring Canada's screen industry events can meaningfully include the communities they serve. All-Access Pass provides practical guidance to help event organizers make that a reality.
About the Project
The Screen Festival Accessibility Program (SFAP) grew out of DSO Executive Director Winnie Luk's experiences travelling to film festivals across Canada and internationally during her first year at the DSO (2023-24). As she connected with disabled creatives in each location, she repeatedly heard that many were not attending the very festivals she was there to participate in, largely because of accessibility barriers. Those conversations highlighted a significant gap in access to these important industry spaces.
After bringing this feedback to festival organizers and beginning broader conversations about how those barriers could be addressed, SFAP was born. With support from Telefilm Canada, this multi-year initiative was designed to establish accessibility standards for Canadian screen industry festivals and events. All-Access Pass is a key outcome of this program, bringing together the lessons, experiences, and insights gathered through the DSO's work with four major festivals: Vancouver International Film Festival, Banff World Media Festival, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and Reelworld Film Festival.
These partners were intentionally selected based on several factors, including existing relationships with the DSO, a demonstrated commitment to advancing accessibility, regional representation, organizational diversity, and a recognition that accessibility must be approached through an intersectional equity lens. Reel Asian and Reelworld were selected in recognition of their existing leadership in equity, diversity, and inclusion.
We partnered with the four festivals to conduct accessibility audits examining programming, patron services, staffing, volunteer practices, and artist services, and worked collaboratively to identify and implement accessibility initiatives. Each festival approached the work based on its own size, resources, audiences, and operational realities. Initiatives supported through the program included measures such as captioning, sign language interpretation, low-sensory spaces, accessibility improvements to venues and communications, and other supports designed to remove barriers to participation.
The DSO also conducted on-the-ground accessibility audits at BANFF and VIFF, gathering feedback from disabled and non-disabled attendees and incorporating their experiences and observations at the festivals. The progress, challenges, and lessons from all four partner festivals were combined with the knowledge and experience of the guide's authors and the SFAP Advisory Committee to inform All-Access Pass.
The result is a resource grounded not only in accessibility best practices, but in the practical experiences of Canadian festivals working to put accessibility into action.
Quotes
We all know that festivals are hubs of our industry. Accessibility at screen festivals and industry events is about ensuring that disabled creatives have access to the relationships, opportunities and conversations that can shape careers, build networks and open doors. Through the Screen Festival Accessibility Program, we've seen what can happen when organizations commit to removing barriers, and we're incredibly proud of the progress our partner festivals have made. All-Access Pass allows us to share those learnings with the entire sector. We hope the next chapter is one of industry-wide adoption, with festivals and screen industry events across Canada making accessibility a fundamental part of how they operate, ensuring disabled creatives can fully participate in these vital industry spaces, and disabled audiences have equitable access to the stories, experiences and communities that festivals bring together. We're deeply grateful to Telefilm Canada for supporting this initiative, and to Banff World Media Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival and Reelworld Film Festival for their commitment to this work and for everything we are building together.
— Winnie Luk, Executive Director, DSO
From working with the DSO, we have been able to shift from accessibility as a standalone pillar of our work to a lens by which we plan all our events. Resources such as "All-access Pass" are vital for film-based organizations no matter where they are in their accessibility journey.
— Brie Koniczek, Director of Operations, Vancouver International Film Festival
Our partnership with the Disability Screen Office has helped us better understand the barriers that can prevent disabled creatives, audiences and industry professionals from fully participating in festivals and industry events, and, importantly, how we can work together to address them.
We recognize that accessibility is not a one-time initiative; it is an ongoing commitment to listening, learning and improving. The work we’ve undertaken with the DSO has helped us take meaningful steps forward, from captioning and sign language interpretation to creating more accessible spaces and experiences throughout the festival.
We’re proud to have contributed to All-Access Pass and to share our learnings with the wider screen industry. We hope this resource encourages more organizations to take practical steps toward building truly inclusive events and to see accessibility not simply as an obligation, but as an essential part of creating a stronger, more connected industry.
— Jenn Kuzmyk, Executive Director, Banff World Media Festival, SVP & Publisher, Playback
Celebrating our 30th anniversary this year, Reel Asian has been an anchor for Asian, Asian diasporic and Asian Canadian creatives in the screen-based sector while serving audiences across the country. What began as a grassroots festival to represent Asian creatives in front and behind the screen has since evolved into building capacity to reshape the narrative on what and how stories can be told and by whom. Accessibility is integral to Reel Asian’s mandate for all the communities we serve and those who seek a place for themselves at the organization, including cultivating a safer and more caring environment for staff to grow within the industry. Beyond Canada, our international partners have taken note and modeled the accessibility framework and infrastructures that are being used and developed at Reel Asian such as offering active listeners, content warnings, and wrap-around care services for entry to any of our events upon request. We are grateful to the support of the Disability Screen Office in seeing the necessity of cultural specificity when it comes to integrating accessibility practices as part of the newly launched All-Access Pass guide. This roadmap and resource will continue to guide Reel Asian's commitment to accessibility.
— Kelly Lui, Associate Director, Reel Asian
Accessibility has to be part of how we think about creating meaningful access to the screen industry. Reelworld was proud to contribute our experience to this work and to learn alongside the Disability Screen Office and our fellow festival partners. All-Access Pass recognizes that organizations are working with different resources and realities, while giving us a practical roadmap for continuing to identify barriers and improve how we serve our communities. We hope it helps more festivals across Canada make accessibility an ongoing part of their work.
— Tonya Williams O.C, Founder and Executive Director, Reelworld Screen Institute
About the Disability Screen Office
The Disability Screen Office (DSO) is a national, bilingual, disability-led not-for-profit organization whose mission is to develop opportunities for disabled creatives and advocate for a more accessible Canadian screen industry. Through our partnerships and programs, we’re setting a new national standard for inclusive screen-based storytelling.
Media Contact:
Kássia Neves
Communications Manager