2024 Accessibility Programme
As New Zealand’s premier short film festival, Show Me Shorts Film Festival is proud to provide opportunities for Kiwis with hearing or vision impairments to enjoy short films.
For the first time this year, there are cinemas screenings of short film collections available in the three main centres with Captions for the hearing impaired.
1. Sun 20 Oct, 6pm - Beachside Cinemas, Auckland
2. Wed 23 Oct, 4pm - Light House Cuba, Wellington
3. Wed 23 Oct, 6pm - Alice Cinemas, Christchurch
The films screening will be The Sampler, which contains many of the Festival’s most vibrant and entertaining shorts. Equal parts moving and silly, audiences will find here stories of triumph, friendship, fantastic creatures and familial love. Tickets are available here.
In addition to the cinemas programme, two themed collections of short films will be available to view with Captions and Audio Descriptions at Show Me Shorts On Demand during Labour Weekend. These include The Sampler as well as Aotearoa – Ka Awatea - The homegrown collection of short films focus on characters making sense of the world after a difficult time. They rise to meet challenges through connection, redemption, justice, closure, understanding and peace. Ka pō, ka ao, ka awatea. From within the darkness comes light and a new day.
Tickets for the Captioned and Audio Described screenings will be available from mid-October. Please get in touch if you’d like to get the notification by emailing us here.
In order to better communicate with all members of the Show Me Shorts community, the website has been redesigned this year, with accessibility in mind. The new website was planned alongside accessibility experts, Lauren Hayes Consultants, who have helped make key improvements to enhance the experience for people with low vision or those who rely on screen readers. These updates ensure smoother navigation, better readability, and a more inclusive environment for all users.
The programme brochure booklet has been redesigned this year, taking into account feedback received from the Show Me Shorts community. Key changes include higher contrast text colours, larger fonts and the addition of index pages. A pull-out Gantt chart showing the spread of screenings in each of the three main centres provides further visual cues to understanding the programme.
Show Me Shorts Festival Director, Gina Dellabarca says: “My team and I believe short films are for everyone. That is why we are working hard to increase the number of opportunities we provide for those with vision and hearing impairments to engage with our festival. Accessibility is important to us, and we’re working hard within our tight budgets to take steps in this area.”
Show Me Shorts welcomes feedback from the community on the accessibility programme and their recently upgraded website. Comments can be sent to info@showmeshorts.co.nz.
