About Your Local Cinema

    The Your Local Cinema website is hosted by Media Access Australia, a not-for-profit, public benevolent institution and Australia's primary media access organisation. MAA's role is to provide information about media access and to support the development and application of technological solutions to media access issues. This includes, but is not limited to, captioning and audio description.

    MAA is based in Sydney and works in collaboration with consumer organisations, Government and industry across the country.

    About Media Access Australia

    Media Access Australia (MAA) is Australia’s only independent not-for-profit media access organisation.

    People with disabilities, particularly those who are Deaf, hearing impaired, blind or vision impaired, are in many cases excluded from mainstream audio-visual media, with often profound implications for educational outcomes, workforce participation and social inclusion.

    MAA works to improve access to audio-visual media, such as TV, cinema, DVDs and new media, by providing information about technological solutions that make audio-visual media accessible to people with disabilities. These solutions include audio description, captioning and mainstream new media technologies. MAA also supports improvements in media access in Australia towards international best practice by identifying mainstream technological solutions and cost-effective ways to promote and implement them.

    To this end, MAA works collaboratively with consumer organisations, Government and industry in Australia and internationally.

    Background

    Media Access Australia was formerly the Australian Caption Centre (ACC), which was co-founded by Adam Salzer and Alexandra Hynes in 1982. In 2005, ACC sold its commercial operations including captioning services to Red Bee Media, and became Media Access Australia (MAA).

    MAA is a uniquely independent not-for-profit organisation, mainly relying on its own investments to fund its activities, rather than donations or commercial operations.

    Staff

    Alex Varley, Chief Executive

    Chris Mikul, Project Manager

    Allayne Woodford, Project Manager

    Scott Hollier, Project Manager

    Belinda Kerslake, Marketing Manager

    Anne McGrath, Education Manager

    Sarah Pulis, New Media Coordinator

    Mathew Gilliland, Policy & Research Coordinator

    Rachel Mulholland, Marketing Assistant

    Yasodai Selvakumaran, Education Assistant

    Angela Tragotsalos, Administrative Assistant

    Board

    Graham Jones, Chair

    Helen Crossing

    John Losco

    Ian Roache

    Victoria Rubensohn

    Stephen Wall