Jonathan Majors’ new movie premieres at Sundance about the caption issue

Jonathan Majors“The new movie at Sundance is already off to a rocky start with the judges, who will be deciding if it’s a winner…” Because he can’t take it. Marlee Matlin.

The actress, who is deaf, is part of a 3-person jury this year that will vote in the American Dramatic Competition taking place at the Film Festival in Park City, Utah. However, since she couldn’t tell what was happening on screen from Majors’ Magazine Dreams, she and two other members of the jury walked out of the show Friday night…that’s according to variety.

The outlet reported that Matlin was given a captioning device before the movie started, but apparently it was malfunctioning… So instead of delaying the show further — it’s already been pushed back 45 minutes — the jurors walked out en masse in demonstration.

Apparently, this is part of a larger number at Sundance… which came to a head during the Majors. A letter was sent to participating filmmakers this year regarding closed captioning, Variety says, citing sources — imploring them to submit clips from their films that included them so that hearing-impaired viewers could enjoy without hiccups like this.

It stated in part, “As a jury, our ability to celebrate the work you all put into making these films has been hampered by the fact that they are not within the reach of all of us.”

Variety reports some Sundance filmmakers are reluctant to include CC — presumably because they feel it could make their films more difficult to buy, not to mention the additional costs and time that would come including an entirely different festival-only version.