How to watch a film that hasn’t been made yet? Foresight (for) accessible future cinema
Workshop at the 3rd Forum without Barriers: On Accessible Cinema 24–26 February 2026, Centre for Culture ZAMEK, Poznań
What will cinema look like when every viewer experiences a different version of the same film – adapted to their perceptual needs? When some watch in “low stimulation” mode while others experience full intensity, both groups sitting side by side? When designing for different bodies and ways of perceiving becomes simply designing?
But also: what happens when cinema spaces become sites of behavioural surveillance? When accessibility tools get caught up in culture wars? When the boundary between personalisation and control begins to blur?
This workshop is a journey into futures of cinema that don’t exist yet, but whose signals are already emerging. Using the Manoa Scenario Building method, participants will explore emerging phenomena – from ageing societies and the rise of “fluid ability,” through AI generating real-time accessibility, to loneliness as a driver of new cinema rituals and the politics of who gets to feel safe in shared spaces. Through cascades of implications and cross-impacts, we’ll construct alternative scenarios for a world 20 years from now.
Participants will design concrete artifacts from these futures – for example, entry tickets with sensory profiles, sketches of seats designed for different bodies and needs, plans for viewing spaces that aren’t dark theatres, fragments of screenplays for films that adapt themselves to the viewer.
These aren’t forecasts. They’re tools for thinking – objects that make abstract futures tangible enough to argue about, to feel uneasy about, to get excited about. The point isn’t to predict what will happen in 2045. It’s to see more clearly the choices we’re already making now, often without noticing.