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Film Festivals are now embracing people with disability, especially starting to include features such as captioning, audio description, quiet sessions, as well as accessible programs.

With only 4% of characters in Australian dramas having an impairment or experiencing disability, compared to 18% of the Australian population living with disability, there are clearly not many roles out there for any aspiring actor with disability.

Film festivals are starting to feature disability streams and sessions, including this year’s Sydney Film Festival.

people with disability who are labelled inspirational for just going to work or catching a bus.

Television advertising is all around us and the viewing evidence is that it is not including people with disabilities. Advertising executives often regard their industry as edgy and breaking new ground

The Attitude Foundation’s Founding Sponsor ANZ held an information and fundraising event at its Melbourne Docklands headquarters on 22 May as part of its support of the Foundation’s drive to get the pilot episode of the TV series to production.

Ordinarily, media organisations compete with one another, but in Britain, they are collaborating because of their shared belief that media should reflect the richness and diversity of society, and provide opportunities to everyone to participate.

The inclusion of people with disabilities as models and actors in marketing and promotion is slowly growing, with companies such as Target, Kmart and Aldi featuring disabled models in catalogues.

The best way to shatter disability stereotypes is to let people with disability do it. The ABC television series You Can’t Ask That provides a forum for doing just that.

A major panel discussion on the portrayal and inclusion of people with disabilities on British TV was hosted by the Royal Television Society this month.

A major American research study lead by David Perry, disability rights journalist and history professor, reviewed media coverage of murders of people with disabilities and found that the reporting of these usually fall quickly into the use of disability stereotypes. They often justify murders as “justified” or “mercy killings” and ignore the humanity of the disabled victims.

The Attitude Foundation is addressing the realistic portrayal of people with disability in television shows.