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http://entertainment.mainetoday.com/variety/060413deaf.shtml
Not to be criticized by conventional standards, films by, for and of the deaf are potentially a credit to the boundless imagination of those who live in a world of silence (some would say sound-free).
In this year's Maine Deaf Film Festival the range of technical quality of both the dramas and the comedies is from thoroughly professional to low-budget substandard efforts.
But, more importantly, most leave you more aware of this life's challenge and its implications. Unlike last year's festival, in response to complaints by the deaf, this year's entries have been either made by deaf people or have deaf characters in key roles.
Here are just a few of the more illuminating (note: "Pinky Tells the Real Story about Videophone and Video Relay Services," a product promo, has been omitted, although it has value to the deaf):
'Secret Love'
(1:40, in German and signing, subtitled) Emmanuel Alaborit, Lars Otterstedt. No U.S. rating. Full frontal nudity, sex implied. In this feature-length story from Switzerland,, Antonia, a strong-willed deaf child of 10 is given over to a convent, her own parents at a loss in dealing with her condition.
She proves to be a joy for the nuns, who are engaged by her strength of character. At 24 she's an attractive, no-nonsense woman, of marked self-confidence, who does charity work at a center for the poor. She has an abiding impatience with insensitive, ignorant attitudes of hearing people.
Awakening other dimensions within her is a video that shows an acting troupe from Gallaudet University for the Deaf in Washington, D.C. It depicts deaf players enjoying acting and, by innovative skills, music.
But it will take romantic love to bring this new yearning in her to life to flower, not to say a realization of her own sexuality in relating to the male world. And that comes when the handsome Lithuanian Micas enters her life.
Micas is almost deaf, speaks just a little, but prefers signing. He says he was a circus worker in Russia, but all that's evident is that he, with his older half-brother, are a pickpocketing team. Micas and Antonia are soon deeply in love, she taking unauthorized leaves from the convent for passionate rendezvous and experiencing feelings she never has before.
Everywhere, Antonia feels ill-fitted for the world to which the nuns and society have assigned her. She and Micas dance at a club, they walk in the park and expand their lives. She demands that he stop pickpocketing.
She is following a different pulse and hopes Micas can join her, but if he can't, she's ready to march alone. When a shattering tragedy intervenes, Antonia must re-order her life, looking now to Gallaudet in the U.S. for fulfillment.
'Welcome to My Deaf World'
(1 hour, both sound and subtitled sign) In this plain and simple documentary, Bethany Rose and Scott Masterson are 11th graders in the Victorian College for the Deaf. Each shares the only-deaf-child-in-family background, yet each has normal teenage dreams to reach out to the big world. Scott, for the moment, wants to be a bricklayer. Bethany fancies the world of fashion photography.
But the regular schools they'd been to before Victorian College had treated them as students with limited possibilities. Now they can share expansive concepts with other students. One student observes, "Hearing is awful, all that shouting and stuff, I'd rather stay deaf."
Some students say they'd rather hear, some would rather stay deaf. The realization becomes that total denial of the deaf challenge is often not constructive. One girl admits, in this context, that she'd really like to talk to her friends on the phone. Yet, encouragingly, a teacher asks, "Do you think the deaf are disabled." "No way, absolutely not," is the general opinion.
And the film's display of the unbridled joy on their faces in many situations is a revelation. One child remarks about hearing, "It's stupid the way they open their mouths when they talk." And "If your mind is OK, you're not disabled," another adds.
Still, another girl wants to bear hearing children. "But how can I communicate with a hearing baby?" "Teach the baby sign language, of course," comes the response.
But then a 15-year-old laments that the deaf "need special treatment all the time." And a girl expresses, "In no way would I marry a deaf person." But still another, "Why do I need hearing anyway; what's it for?"
Indeed, around the school, one gets the sense of a different way of life, not a limiting one. The students analyze love and romance in literature, they play in sports, they go to hearing parties. "Some guys like deaf girls," says one girl, "because we express ourselves better."
Much family life is shown when Bethany and Scott visit. The typical teenage-parent conflicts are all there.
The sound quality is low, making subtitles necessary even for exchanges between hearing persons. The film is technically serviceable but, short of dynamic pacing and editing, is left to its intrinsic interest in the deaf. It works OK and rises to the basic task of a film, to make you feel more aware of its subject.
'No Talking Allowed'
(35 min., subtitled) Very light and humorous, the film bases all of its comedy on the intrinsic ironies in a world in which, as a hearing person, you are never aware, in the course of your daily activities, that there are individuals who cannot hear, and may find it necessary to fake it.
In this film, as in many of deaf-world films, extremely animated faces create captivating energy and not only compensate but go far beyond the limited dimension of hearing persons in the way of nonverbal communication. As a hearing person, you can almost read every moment in their faces and body language.
So here we have a deaf young male artist looking to do a serious painting, head-and-shoulders, of a young woman. As he laments to his deaf buddies that his deafness makes getting a girl to pose difficult, even in such a fully dressed pose, one of them suggests a routine model-ad along with the words "No Talking Allowed." When a young woman shows up, he can just explain in some way. (In these times, of course, the viewer may well ask what attractive girl would simply answer such a model-wanted ad by a total stranger, but never mind.) So, bravely, he proclaims, "I will not let hearing people stop my dreams from coming through." His project begins.
We now meet a group of young deaf women talking about things * and the ad. Go for it, they all advise one of their more curious. No talking allowed, so you won't have to hear.
So a woman shows up at the deaf artist's studio, a sign on the door reminding her of no talking allowed. He explains in motions that it's because the next door dog is excitable and loud.
So she poses and he paints, neither aware that the other is deaf. Indeed, his pals have advised him to act like a hearing person, otherwise she'll feel awkward. Her friends have counseled her similarly. The comedy in this circumstance becomes really cute. Each must subdue the normal animated gestures of the deaf and become like those relatively blandly expressed motions of the hearing.
Much later, at his art show, she sees his work. The film takes on a heavier tone as we see his surreal touches to her facial portrait, complete with abstract statements on ear molds. And now, charmingly they will become aware, in the group interaction, that each is deaf. Romance blossoms.
'Text, Batteries and Earwax'
(15 min., British, subtitled) This is a little tale of tolerance and resolution. In a railroad station in England, Steve, who's partially deaf, text messages to his girlfriend at his destination that the train delay means he'll have to stay over and get a hotel room. Another waiting passenger, Lenny, superficially perceiving that Steve is totally deaf, introduces himself as deaf.
Steve couldn't care less about this clumsy, insensitive boor and succumbs with great inner resistance to Lenny's invitation to join him in a hotel for the night. They enter the room. It has but one bed. At once, Steve asserts that he's not gay. "Are you sure?" asks Lenny.
Later, at the hotel bar, a pretty girl, noting the two guys' signing, asks to learn a little more than she already knows of signing. Lenny jumps to this enviable task, one which he fashions into what's beginning to look to Steve like a bit of a groping exercise.
Later, the two guys are in bed * to sleep. Lenny gets pretty gross as he swabs his ears and asks Steve if he wants to use the swab. In the morning, back again at the train station, Steve would just as soon get rid of this guy.
At the destination, Steve stops into a deaf bar, is roughed around by a big burly patron but all is resolved when it turns out Lenny is there too and a camaraderie is struck up. Their state of deafness, convincingly, becomes the communication that overrides and erases all hostilities.
'Chronic Embarrassment'
(7 min., subtitled) This British short film has some guys rapping about the awkwardness they run into a situation in which they have to hone their skills in making it look like they understand a hearing person's conversation by reading lips and body language.
The progression cuts to the actual youth dance-club scene with one of them in a lively give-and-take with a girl who never suspects he's deaf. It can be funny, but you're laughing at the conventions of communication, not at the deaf experience.
Not to be criticized by conventional standards, films by, for and of the deaf are potentially a credit to the boundless imagination of those who live in a world of silence (some would say sound-free).
In this year's Maine Deaf Film Festival the range of technical quality of both the dramas and the comedies is from thoroughly professional to low-budget substandard efforts.
But, more importantly, most leave you more aware of this life's challenge and its implications. Unlike last year's festival, in response to complaints by the deaf, this year's entries have been either made by deaf people or have deaf characters in key roles.
Here are just a few of the more illuminating (note: "Pinky Tells the Real Story about Videophone and Video Relay Services," a product promo, has been omitted, although it has value to the deaf):
'Secret Love'
(1:40, in German and signing, subtitled) Emmanuel Alaborit, Lars Otterstedt. No U.S. rating. Full frontal nudity, sex implied. In this feature-length story from Switzerland,, Antonia, a strong-willed deaf child of 10 is given over to a convent, her own parents at a loss in dealing with her condition.
She proves to be a joy for the nuns, who are engaged by her strength of character. At 24 she's an attractive, no-nonsense woman, of marked self-confidence, who does charity work at a center for the poor. She has an abiding impatience with insensitive, ignorant attitudes of hearing people.
Awakening other dimensions within her is a video that shows an acting troupe from Gallaudet University for the Deaf in Washington, D.C. It depicts deaf players enjoying acting and, by innovative skills, music.
But it will take romantic love to bring this new yearning in her to life to flower, not to say a realization of her own sexuality in relating to the male world. And that comes when the handsome Lithuanian Micas enters her life.
Micas is almost deaf, speaks just a little, but prefers signing. He says he was a circus worker in Russia, but all that's evident is that he, with his older half-brother, are a pickpocketing team. Micas and Antonia are soon deeply in love, she taking unauthorized leaves from the convent for passionate rendezvous and experiencing feelings she never has before.
Everywhere, Antonia feels ill-fitted for the world to which the nuns and society have assigned her. She and Micas dance at a club, they walk in the park and expand their lives. She demands that he stop pickpocketing.
She is following a different pulse and hopes Micas can join her, but if he can't, she's ready to march alone. When a shattering tragedy intervenes, Antonia must re-order her life, looking now to Gallaudet in the U.S. for fulfillment.
'Welcome to My Deaf World'
(1 hour, both sound and subtitled sign) In this plain and simple documentary, Bethany Rose and Scott Masterson are 11th graders in the Victorian College for the Deaf. Each shares the only-deaf-child-in-family background, yet each has normal teenage dreams to reach out to the big world. Scott, for the moment, wants to be a bricklayer. Bethany fancies the world of fashion photography.
But the regular schools they'd been to before Victorian College had treated them as students with limited possibilities. Now they can share expansive concepts with other students. One student observes, "Hearing is awful, all that shouting and stuff, I'd rather stay deaf."
Some students say they'd rather hear, some would rather stay deaf. The realization becomes that total denial of the deaf challenge is often not constructive. One girl admits, in this context, that she'd really like to talk to her friends on the phone. Yet, encouragingly, a teacher asks, "Do you think the deaf are disabled." "No way, absolutely not," is the general opinion.
And the film's display of the unbridled joy on their faces in many situations is a revelation. One child remarks about hearing, "It's stupid the way they open their mouths when they talk." And "If your mind is OK, you're not disabled," another adds.
Still, another girl wants to bear hearing children. "But how can I communicate with a hearing baby?" "Teach the baby sign language, of course," comes the response.
But then a 15-year-old laments that the deaf "need special treatment all the time." And a girl expresses, "In no way would I marry a deaf person." But still another, "Why do I need hearing anyway; what's it for?"
Indeed, around the school, one gets the sense of a different way of life, not a limiting one. The students analyze love and romance in literature, they play in sports, they go to hearing parties. "Some guys like deaf girls," says one girl, "because we express ourselves better."
Much family life is shown when Bethany and Scott visit. The typical teenage-parent conflicts are all there.
The sound quality is low, making subtitles necessary even for exchanges between hearing persons. The film is technically serviceable but, short of dynamic pacing and editing, is left to its intrinsic interest in the deaf. It works OK and rises to the basic task of a film, to make you feel more aware of its subject.
'No Talking Allowed'
(35 min., subtitled) Very light and humorous, the film bases all of its comedy on the intrinsic ironies in a world in which, as a hearing person, you are never aware, in the course of your daily activities, that there are individuals who cannot hear, and may find it necessary to fake it.
In this film, as in many of deaf-world films, extremely animated faces create captivating energy and not only compensate but go far beyond the limited dimension of hearing persons in the way of nonverbal communication. As a hearing person, you can almost read every moment in their faces and body language.
So here we have a deaf young male artist looking to do a serious painting, head-and-shoulders, of a young woman. As he laments to his deaf buddies that his deafness makes getting a girl to pose difficult, even in such a fully dressed pose, one of them suggests a routine model-ad along with the words "No Talking Allowed." When a young woman shows up, he can just explain in some way. (In these times, of course, the viewer may well ask what attractive girl would simply answer such a model-wanted ad by a total stranger, but never mind.) So, bravely, he proclaims, "I will not let hearing people stop my dreams from coming through." His project begins.
We now meet a group of young deaf women talking about things * and the ad. Go for it, they all advise one of their more curious. No talking allowed, so you won't have to hear.
So a woman shows up at the deaf artist's studio, a sign on the door reminding her of no talking allowed. He explains in motions that it's because the next door dog is excitable and loud.
So she poses and he paints, neither aware that the other is deaf. Indeed, his pals have advised him to act like a hearing person, otherwise she'll feel awkward. Her friends have counseled her similarly. The comedy in this circumstance becomes really cute. Each must subdue the normal animated gestures of the deaf and become like those relatively blandly expressed motions of the hearing.
Much later, at his art show, she sees his work. The film takes on a heavier tone as we see his surreal touches to her facial portrait, complete with abstract statements on ear molds. And now, charmingly they will become aware, in the group interaction, that each is deaf. Romance blossoms.
'Text, Batteries and Earwax'
(15 min., British, subtitled) This is a little tale of tolerance and resolution. In a railroad station in England, Steve, who's partially deaf, text messages to his girlfriend at his destination that the train delay means he'll have to stay over and get a hotel room. Another waiting passenger, Lenny, superficially perceiving that Steve is totally deaf, introduces himself as deaf.
Steve couldn't care less about this clumsy, insensitive boor and succumbs with great inner resistance to Lenny's invitation to join him in a hotel for the night. They enter the room. It has but one bed. At once, Steve asserts that he's not gay. "Are you sure?" asks Lenny.
Later, at the hotel bar, a pretty girl, noting the two guys' signing, asks to learn a little more than she already knows of signing. Lenny jumps to this enviable task, one which he fashions into what's beginning to look to Steve like a bit of a groping exercise.
Later, the two guys are in bed * to sleep. Lenny gets pretty gross as he swabs his ears and asks Steve if he wants to use the swab. In the morning, back again at the train station, Steve would just as soon get rid of this guy.
At the destination, Steve stops into a deaf bar, is roughed around by a big burly patron but all is resolved when it turns out Lenny is there too and a camaraderie is struck up. Their state of deafness, convincingly, becomes the communication that overrides and erases all hostilities.
'Chronic Embarrassment'
(7 min., subtitled) This British short film has some guys rapping about the awkwardness they run into a situation in which they have to hone their skills in making it look like they understand a hearing person's conversation by reading lips and body language.
The progression cuts to the actual youth dance-club scene with one of them in a lively give-and-take with a girl who never suspects he's deaf. It can be funny, but you're laughing at the conventions of communication, not at the deaf experience.