Hoyts is taking a special step to help the special needs community with a sensory-friendly session of Christopher Robin.
The trial screening will take place at Hoyts Hibiscus Coast in Auckland at 4:15pm on Friday 21 September.
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Location manager Freya McAneny says the cinema is offering discounted tickets to help families come and watch.
"We've had a lot of requests from the community to have a 'sensory-friendly' screening for people with special needs, autism, sensory or learning disabilities and their families," Ms McAneny says.
"In this session the lighting will be on and dimmed and the sound levels set much lower.
"People are welcome to walk around, make noise, clap, jump if they like during the film and their families will be able to relax and feel like they aren't being judged or disrupting the movie for others."
Local woman Gaylene Chambers, who has an autistic son, helped organise the event. She says it will be a "great opportunity" for people who might not normally get to watch movie screenings.
"When children have special needs, in these kinds of situation they can experience sensory overload which can lead to meltdowns," she says.
"A lot of children who have episodes don't go to these kinds of places because they can't cope."
Ms McAneny told Newshub she's "really sad" families might have been missing out, and says there's been a lot of "heartwarming comments" from the community online.
Ms Chambers says she's "really excited" to see how it goes - and hopes the screenings will continue.
"Hopefully if we get a great response from the community, it could become a regular event," she says.
"It will be so neat for those families with kids/adults with any kind of special needs to be able to feel at ease, relaxed and not worry about what their special need child/adult needs to do in order to self-regulate whilst watching the movie."
The tickets are $10, and are available online and in person at the cinema.
Newshub.
