Last week, InSight Cinema announced its closure. The non-profit organization -- which has been part of i711.com's community -- was an advocate for captioned films for 15 years, but no longer has the resources to continue its services.

What precipitated this, and what does it mean for us consumers? Founder Nanci Linke-Ellis was gracious enough to answer some questions.

"We've come a long way in the past 15 years," she says, "and have more access than ever before, but it's still under two percent [of the entire DHH community]. Now that theatres are about to convert to digital projection systems, an extremely costly, complex project, their focus is not on our needs. I don't see any further development or increase in movie access until digital systems are installed in theatres. Unfortunately, the DHH community is going to experience a great deal of frustration with locating captions or inadequate captions (particularly on TV) until its finished and the dust settled."

I asked what InSight Cinema would do if they had the funds they now lack. Communication has always been the biggest barrier, Linke-Ellis says, and for the DHH community as well. If you're not looking for captioned movies in local theatres -- or even know they exist -- you wouldn't notice them in the newspaper.

As a result, Linke-Ellis says she would have hired a top advertising agency and placed ads in mainstream media and online media. After all, many of the people who could benefit from captions don't identify themselves as being deaf or hard of hearing. "We live in a youth-obsessed nation," says Linke-Ellis. "The arrival of iPods and virtual reality games has lessened some of the stigma of 'ear gear,' but it's still not okay to be deaf or hard of hearing in 2008. Bill Clinton wears a hearing aid; so does Phil Collins. How many ads do you see for hearing aid batteries with young people in them?"

Linke-Ellis called InSight Cinema a labor of love for the past 15 years. Naturally, she has mixed feelings about this new phase of her life. She reiterated that she will never stop advocating for captioning or access, and now has a deaf identity that's part and parcel for who she is. But it's time to move on to new challenges. "I come from a show business family, so anything I do will probably be related in some fashion," she says.

Just because InSight Cinema will no longer be active doesn't mean that this kind of advocacy isn't needed. "Less than two percent of the targeted audience even knows that they can go to the movies," Linke-Ellis says. "Movie theatres are about dollars and sense. If there are ten people in a 200-seat auditorium, they're looking at the loss of income from the empty 190 seats. But you have to know about it in order to go to it. We are constantly battling with the communications barrier, whether it be hearing loss or a different first language. Just think, if you replaced all those Viagra-type commercials with ones about captioned films, subtitled opera and other forms of text-based entertainment, how many people would start to get it. Trust me, there are many more people with hearing loss than there are men with Erectile Dysfunction."

So what can we as deaf consumers do? The digital revolution is going to impact us in many ways that haven't even been realized, says Linke-Ellis. Deaf consumers need to know what they need and how to ask for it. "Technology moves much faster than accessibility, so we have to continue educating people about our needs," Linke-Ellis says. "It's not that they don't care -- it's just that they don't know what they don't know."

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