Cassidy Dimon: Last News

Nonprofit leader Cassidy Dimon, a film industry accessibility and inclusion veteran, has been named the inaugural executive director of FWD-Doc: Filmmakers with Disabilities.

EXCLUSIVE: Rick Peréz has announced his intention to resign as executive director of the International Documentary Association, with word coming just days before the organization’s signature annual event, the IDA Awards, Deadline has learned exclusively.

Manori Ravindran International EditorA long-awaited Accessibility Scorecard for film events will be released on Friday, providing a tool that could enable filmmakers and other industry professionals to make festivals more accessible.In order to draw visibility to the inaccessibility of festivals and entertainment industry events, FWD-Doc has partnered with Film Event Accessibility Working Group (FEAW), led by Cassidy Dimon, to begin the collective reporting of data related to accessibility successes and failures. Variety first reported on the initiative following the Cannes Film Festival in May.Dimon, who developed the Scorecard questionnaire, explains that “the burden of explaining inaccessibility” is currently placed on the filmmaker or attendee. “The objective of the Scorecard is to make it as easy as possible for people to provide concise feedback without requiring them to invest even more of their time and labor on improving a festival or event,” she said.Eryn Brown, agent and co-founder of Hollywood campaign group 1IN4 Coalition, added: “Professionals attending festivals should be able to focus on their art or their job, and not have to fight just to get fair access to a room or a stage.”Festivals, filmmakers, professionals, and event attendees can access the Scorecard as an online questionnaire template, where users can provide responses about their experiences with festivals and film events.

Manori Ravindran International EditorA new “Accessibility Scorecard” launched this summer will aim to help U.S. and international film festivals assess and improve their accessibility measures, Variety can reveal.Developed by filmmaker and former International Documentary Association executive Cassidy Dimon in conjunction with the Film Festival Alliance and FWD-Doc, a collective of documentary filmmakers with disabilities, the Accessibility Scorecard will gather data from festival participants (such as speakers and filmmakers) and attendees that will be fed back to organizers in order to increase their awareness of how accessible their events are.“Right now, the burden is on the filmmaker or attendee to provide feedback and go to a festival and tell them what’s wrong or right — they can’t just [focus on] their job,” explains Dimon.

EXCLUSIVE: Dwindling staff at the International Documentary Association are pursuing plans to unionize, Deadline has learned.

EXCLUSIVE: The International Documentary Association continues to lose staff. Deadline has learned five more employees have left the embattled organization recently, including one whose resignation takes effect today.