Take Action
Beyond the personal story it conveys, unseen seeks to advance the discourse around disability, immigration, and mental health through an impact campaign. Our three goals are: Access, Affirm, Transform.
Access: The film serves as a model for accessible storytelling by using visuals, sound design, text, and language translation geared towards a wide array of audiences.
Affirm: The film upholds the inherent humanity and worthiness of communities who have often been relegated to the shadows.
Transform: The film contributes towards building a world that is more just for disabled and undocumented people.
Below are some offerings on how you can join us towards these goals.
Access
ACCESSIBILITY IS A COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY!
How can you contribute to making your perimeter of the world more accessible? Here are some ways you can start:
If you’re hosting a party, a meeting, a meal, a performance, a protest, whatever the event or gathering, ASK FOR PEOPLE’S ACCESS NEEDS. To truly cultivate safe, justice-oriented, and liberatory spaces that account for everyone, we must make accessibility a priority. Folks’ access needs may be as varied as needing ASL interpretation, wheelchair accessible spaces, easy access to a bathroom, or a quiet and unstimulating space to regulate. As Mia Mingus, Alice Wong, and Sandy Ho beautifully point out, “Access is Love.”
If you’re posting images on social media, make sure to include alt-text and captions so that they’re accessible for blind and low vision users. Remember: captions (longer descriptive text) go in the post itself, alt-text (shorter descriptive text) is embedded into the image. Here are some resources on how to include alt-text in Facebook, Instagram, and X posts, and how to develop alt-text:
If you’re a movie theater or a group/organization trying to host a screening of a film, here’s our Accessibility Checklist, to make sure your event is as accessible as possible and meets the access needs of your attendees. You can also check out the Film Exhibition Accessibility for Patrons, by the Film Event Accessibility Working Group (FEAW), a checklist “intended to help organizations identify areas for growth in film event accessibility”, which also includes Terminology and Resource Addendums “to provide depth and increased context.”
Affirm
Be a Friend: unseen is as much a film about friendship and healing as it is about immigration, disability, and mental health. Set and Pedro’s friendship - which unfolds and grows in front of the audience - anchors unseen and bonds them across their shared identities and experiences. Together, they’re able to hold space for each others’ struggles, and accompany one another through their healing processes.
We invite you to do something that may sound simple, cliché even, but is one of the most important things we can do in our lifetimes: be a friend. Be a source of empathy and understanding. Be a safe place for people in your community. Be a fountain of affirmation and upliftment. Be the Set to a Pedro, be the Pedro to a Set.
Transform
Our partner organizations are sources of unrelenting inspiration and inform how unseen moves through the world. We believe in reciprocal partnerships and mutual upliftment. We invite you to join, support, uplift, and follow our community partners, who are doing transformational work in diverse social justice, advocacy, and culture related areas.