Sundance 2020: Inclusion, Diversity, and Disability beyond Diagnosis

Thirty years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, are festivals like Sundance ready to move beyond basic access to embrace a new disability aesthetic? In search of an answer, Lawrence Carter-Long attends his first Sundance Film Festival, with a goal of assessing Sundance's commitment to disability access and inclusion beyond the branding and rhetoric. He reviews the Festival's disability-focused programming, participation, panels, and planning, much of which was supported by the Festival's new partnership with the Ruderman Family Foundation, whose philanthropy focuses on disability rights. Carter-Long discusses audience favorites Crip Camp and The Reason I Jump, both of which received audience awards, as well as the Festival's efforts to provide closed-captioning (CC) via individual CaptiView devices and Feature Film Captioning Service, concluding that the Festival set a new standard for disability inclusion and access.