Marlee Matlin and Other Sundance Film Festival Jurors Walk Out of Premiere Over Captioning Malfunction

Jeremy O. Harris, Eliza Hittman and Marlee Matlin walked out of the Sundance Film Festival premiere of Magazine Dreams on Friday when captioning was not properly provided for the film.

Matlin, who has been deaf since she was 18 months old, was provided with a captioning device that didn't work, Variety reported. The three members of the jury for Sundance's U.S. Dramatic Competition — playwright Harris, filmmaker Hittman and actress Matlin — left the screening as it became clear that Matlin would be unable to experience the film.

The device was later repaired and the jurors will be screening Elijah Bynum's film "as a group" before the festival ends on Sunday.

Harris, Hittman and Matlin sent a letter to filmmakers at Sundance following the incident on Friday night.

"We have all traveled to Utah to celebrate independent film and those who devote their lives to making them," the letter read, according to Variety. "There's a thrill to sit in a room with others who love films and cheer for them together and Sundance has been an important place for each of us to do that over our varied careers. The U.S. independent cinema movement began as a way to make film accessible to everyone, not just those with the most privileges among us. As a jury our ability to celebrate the work that all of you have put into making these films has been disrupted by the fact that they are not accessible to all three of us."

The jurors requested that screenings include the open-caption packages of the film in order to allow all jurors — and viewers — to experience the story.

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The festival's CEO Joana Vicente released a statement in response to Friday's incident that acknowledged the work that is yet to be done when it comes to making the festival accessible and inclusive to all.

"Our goal is to make all experiences (in person and online) as accessible as possible for all participants," the statement said. "Our accessibility efforts are, admittedly, always evolving and feedback helps drive it forward for the community as a whole."

Vicente added that while the closed captions device did not work at the premiere on Friday, it "worked without any malfunction" for the next screening.

"Our team has done extraordinary work in this area but there is always more work to do. We all still need to do more as we learn and consider the community at large."

Matlin, 57, has spent much of her career advocating for more inclusion for the deaf community in Hollywood and beyond. She successfully petitioned the Academy of Arts and Sciences to add subtitles to its awards screeners, and helped spearhead the National Association of the Deaf's effort to require the White House to provide onscreen sign language interpreters at press conferences.

"A lot of people forget that diversity also includes deaf and disabled people," Matlin said during a 2021 interview with PEOPLE. "I'm still seeing lack of representation, whether you're talking about in magazines, or online, or on television, or in film. I still feel we've got to remind people constantly."

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Her film CODA, which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Festival and centers on a deaf family, won Best Picture at the Oscars in 2022.

"There's one thing I'm really tired of, which is people who don't take the time to learn about us," Matlin told PEOPLE. "You can't get angry at people who don't know anything about deaf culture or deaf people, because they weren't exposed, they weren't taught, they never experienced it. I don't get upset with that, but I can get upset with the denial of my rights, oppression of accessibility, my right to accessibility, of being included."