The Confédération Française pour la Promotion Sociale des Aveugles et Amblyopes (CFPSAA), French member of EBU, has just created an audio description quality award for movies.
Blind spectators love movies but can’t always find good quality audio description. To educate professionals and raise awareness of audio description the CFPSAA culture committee has created a new award named the “Marius of audio description”. It’s a nod to classic cinema in France. In an old film called Marius, Marius is the son of César; and César is the name of the French equivalent of the Oscars.
The award ceremony was held on 28 February and we were pleased to be welcomed at the CNC, (National Cinéma Center). After an introduction, the projection room was plunged into darkness, and the public found themselves in the condition of blindness for a few excerpts of audio described films. It was a good practical demonstration.
We choose the seven films in competition for the “César of the cinema 2018” and a jury of blind people analysed, during three months, all the audio description tapes. The winner was “Petit Paysan” by director, Hubert Charuel. The prize was awarded to both the audio-describer and the laboratory.
There was a lot of emotion for this first edition. This topic is important, cinema is part of our culture and is thus a part of citizens' daily lives. In establishing this award, the CFPSAA hopes to contribute a little more to the improvement of visually impaired people’s lives.
Chantal Le Solliec (CFPSAA)