Imaginings

Deaf Identity

2024

DEAF IDENTITY explores the diverse and nuanced experiences of Deafness through a series of enlightening conversations with Deaf people who have embraced their own unique identities.

The Tuba Thieves

2024 · ★ 8

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

2023

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

Land of Silence and Darkness

1971 · ★ 7.5

Through examining Fini Straubinger, an old woman who has been deaf and blind since her teens, and her work on behalf of other deaf-blind people, this film shows how the deaf-blind struggle to understand and accept a world from which they are almost wholly isolated.

Koko: A Talking Gorilla

1978 · ★ 7

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

Seeing Voices

2017

No synopsis available.

Listen

2016

Documentary without audio produced by deaf people. Music is depicted visually with the complete absence of musical instruments or voices. Directed by Makihara Eri and choreographer Dakei. With a diverse lineup including ordinary deaf people with zero acting experience and a choreographer who performs in Japan and abroad, this film pulls out all the tops to give visual expression to music through the physical body. An aging man uses multiple sign language poems to convey the four seasons, and a girl expresses the wind amidst the rustling trees.

Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Echo

2024 · ★ 5.8

Join us on a revealing journey behind-the-scenes of Maya Lopez’s own groundbreaking series. Witness how the production took unprecedented steps to portray the deaf experience, and Native American culture truthfully. Spend time with powerhouse actor Vincent D’Onofrio as he brings the Kingpin to monstrous life once again. All this and more waits to be discovered in "Assembled: The Making of Echo."

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution

2020 · ★ 7.2

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.

A Sonorous Melody

2023

Growing up as a Deaf individual in Indonesia, Mufi was taught to speak instead of sign. As an adult, now she carves her music career to inspire others to express themselves through sign language.

Song of Myself (Section 51)

In Song of Myself (Section 51) we meet Thomas Michael Smith- a retired social worker, sign language interpreter, openly gay deacon in the Catholic church, and part time drag queen. Over a tour of his space, he shares what life containing multitudes looks like for him.

Talking Hands

1959

Spring is coming. Deaf-mute girl and boy feel the warmth of the sun on their faces, the air is flooded with light. The world of these young people lacks sound and their language is different, but they are happy about spring and each other.