A Talk with the Founders of the Festival of Cinema for the Deaf
By Mike Ervin (mervin4241@aol.com)
Liz Tannebaum was in love with the movies as a deaf child and teen in the 1960s and 70s, but it was mostly unrequited. The Hollywood movies the other kids were going to weren't captioned.
"The hardest time not to be able to go to movies is during Christmas break, because all the kids are going," she says. "We stand by the windows and we look out drooling, watching these kids. We want to be standing in line. We want to watch the same movies."
That's why the second annual festival of Cinema for the Deaf in Chicago, which was held February 28 through March 4, featured a captioned version of the Hollywood movies Daredevil and Jungle Book II. Last year it was Monsters Inc.
"We want to share the same movies other people share. Hollywood is for everyone." says Tannebaum. She wants young people who are feeling as left out as she did to have somewhere to feel welcome, even if it's just once a year.
Deaf festivals now abound
Deaf film festivals abound these days. There was one last year in Moscow in addition to long running ones in Wolverhampton and London, England. There are others scheduled to launch soon in Europe and the U.S. But Tannebaum and Joshua Flanders, her hearing partner in organizing the Chicago festival, like to think theirs is unique.
The emphasis on involving deaf kids goes well beyond passive audience viewing of the work of others. This year, a group of deaf kids ages 10 to 17 took part in a claymation workshop that was part of the weekend's activities. Together they made a one minute film which was shown 10 times during the fest. Last year, kids made music video in the workshop, illustrating the vibrations of a song.
That's Flanders‰ idea. He's a former high school English teacher who founded the Chicago Institute for the Moving Image. He wants to open up the joy of both watching and making films to everyone who‰ll give him the chance. So even though he's not deaf he's passionate about captioning to make films accessible not just for deaf people but also for people who speak languages other than the one spoken in the film.
Tannebaum says, "I Just like to have people of different cultures enjoy movies together."
Flanders and Tannebaum met when he became a member a few years back of a Chicago synagogue where services are done in both spoken words and American Sign Language. Flanders was captured by, "the beauty of sign language, the way they use it for song and for prayer." Because it's so visual, Flanders recognized it as an eloquent language for cinema.
What women want
Tannebaum had always thought along the same lines. She is a stage and film actress and conducts theater workshops for deaf kids. You can see her, among other places, in a shopping mall scene in the Mel Gibson movie "What Women Want." She had dreamed for years of organizing a film festival as an international showcase for the talents of deaf actors and directors.
Flanders says, "We wondered, It seemed so easy, why hadn't it been done before?‰ Liz and I saw that it had been done but it hadn't been done in what I felt was the right way, which was to involve kids, and have a think tank discussing intellectual issues."
So another feature of the Chicago fest is panel discussions open to the public. Filmmakers and actors who attend the fest exchange opinions and ideas on things like deaf culture, how to get producers and theaters to make and show more captioned films, directing techniques and whatever else comes up.
Keeping a deaf audience in mind
The films selected for the Chicago festival don't have to have anything to do with being deaf, nor do they have to be by a deaf filmmaker or even have any deaf actors in them. Flanders says they only have to be captioned in English and "be made with a deaf audience in mind."
So even though most film are related to deafness in some however remote way, films like "Chlorine" also can be chosen by the screening panel (composed mostly of deaf people.) "Chlorine", which was shown this year, is about a young girl who swims to the bottom of her family pool to meet an imaginary friend. The filmmaker is not deaf and there are no deaf people in it. None of the actors use ASL. But when the girl talks to her friend under water she does so with gestures, smiles, expressions and body language.
Thus, it has the sort of visual poetry that Flanders and Tannebaum consider to be the heart of great cinema for the deaf.
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