Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution

Down the road from Woodstock in the early 1970s, a revolution blossomed in a ramshackle summer camp for disabled teenagers, transforming their young lives and igniting a landmark movement.

Plating Blind

Nathan Quinell is a fully trained chef… he also happens to be legally deaf and blind. That’s never stopped him from chasing his dreams to become a full-time cook, but now Nathan must prove himself to his peers, his students and potential employers.

Parte - Teatro do Corpo

Before it gets dark

Lotte (18) and Roos (16) are sisters and both have Usher syndrome. That means they will soon become deaf and blind. It is not known how fast that will go, but they already see and hear a lot worse than their peers. How do these two high-spirited girls deal with their development into adulthood, while the time bomb of deafness and blindness ticks inexorably? They are not deterred from getting the most out of life: Lotte is studying to become a photographer and Roos is passing her final exams. At the same time, they also want to do a few things before it is too late, such as seeing the Northern Lights with their own eyes. Director Kim Smeekes followed Lotte and Roos for the film for two years.

The Year We Thought About Love

With passion, wit, intelligence and attitude, an LGBTQ youth theater group creates a play about love in all its forms, while bonding together to make change in their own lives. With candor, they tell their stories through intimate interviews, entertaining and powerful clips of their self-written plays, and glimpse into their everyday lives. Members range from a transgender woman being kicked out of her home, to a runway model who likes men’s clothing, to an out gay man accepted unconditionally by his mother. The plays they write and perform are close to their experiences and not only provide catharsis but insight into what it means to be gay, lesbian, transgender, or just queer. It’s an inspirational work of art about the hardships one faces in realizing that they are different and the courage it takes to find the pride within that.

Koko: A Talking Gorilla

A documentary that follows Dr. Penny Patterson's current scientific study of Koko, a gorilla who communicates through American Sign Language.

Breaking Silence

A portrait of a Deaf activist and his formerly incarcerated daughter who build new bonds through their experiences in the criminal justice system.

The Sign for Love

In his heartfelt documentary, co-director and subject Elad Cohen explores the meaning and experience of family. Growing up deaf and gay in a family of hearing people, Cohen never felt at home and always felt alone. That feeling of estrangement was exacerbated during his adolescence by the sudden death of his mother and the subsequent rift with his father as the family scattered in different directions. Cohen creates a sense of family with a small group of friends, including his best friend, Yaeli, a deaf woman. While he wants a child and a life partner, he fears that he won’t find the right man in the small deaf community in his “sweet little country.” Sharing a desire with Yaeli to be parents, the new “couple” decide to have a child in a shared parenting arrangement.

Seeing Voices

Martin Army Theater

Cloud Making Machine

Firas, Jallow and Batoul just arrived in Berlin. They meet one another in a theatre group. They are searching for the good life in Germany - yet things don’t turn out the way they hoped. Through video letters, they reveal their deepest emotions to their families and friends back in their war-torn or poverty-stricken home countries.

The Tuba Thieves

A spate of robberies in Southern California schools had an oddly specific target: tubas. In this work of creative nonfiction, d/Deaf first-time feature director Alison O’Daniel presents the impact of these crimes from an unexpected angle. The film unfolds mimicking a game of telephone, where sound’s feeble transmissibility is proven as the story bends and weaves to human interpretation and miscommunication. The result is a stunning contribution to cinematic language. O’Daniel has developed a syntax of deafness that offers a complex, overlaid, surprising new texture, which offers a dimensional experience of deafness and reorients the audience auditorily in an unfamiliar and exhilarating way.

Elsa

A Deafblind fencer and author competes in all arenas just for the right to be seen.

Soul(Signs): Opera

A series of three short films exploring the intersection of opera and American Sign Language, starring some of today’s most acclaimed Deaf and signing performers. Created by Up Until Now Collective.

Imaginings

Six deaf performers share struggles and dreams of a new Deaf generation. These poetic self-portraits in sign language show empowerment and confidence, and the vulnerabilities that come with being different.

See What I'm Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary

This inspirational documentary follows four deaf entertainers: a comic, drummer, actor and a singer as they attempt to cross over to mainstream audiences. These uniquely talented entertainers overcome great challenges to celebrate success.

To My Father

To My Father depicts Deaf actor Troy Kotsur's journey to winning an Oscar and his father's inspiring influence on him, despite a tragic accident.

Je me soulève

Twenty young actors are brought together for a creation lab to create a collective work at one of the great national theatres. Over a full year, they scour contemporary Québécois poetry to tap into the spirit of the times.

La surditude

Viktor

Viktor, who was born deaf, worships the figure of the samurai warrior. When bombs start falling on his countryside home in Kharkiv, his quasi-romantic obsession with war is put to the test.