The true story of the frightening, lonely world of silence and darkness of 7-year-old Helen Keller who, since infancy, has never seen the sky, heard her mother's voice or expressed her innermost feelings. Then Annie Sullivan, a 20-year-old teacher from Boston, arrives. Having just recently regained her own sight, the no-nonsense Annie reaches out to Helen through the power of touch, the only tool they have in common, and leads her bold pupil on a miraculous journey from fear and isolation to happiness and light.
Starting his new job as an instructor at a New England school for the deaf, James Leeds meets Sarah Norman, a young deaf woman who works at the school as a member of the custodial staff. In spite of Sarah's withdrawn emotional state, a romance slowly develops between the pair.
Harley, a Deaf man, is determined to figure out the most effective way to flirt with the cute hearing guy he sees in the coffee shop, which requires a bit of trial and error.
After a horrific encounter with a stranger, two friends, one blind and other deaf, use their senses to defend themselves from a robbery gone.
Discover the story of the greatest civil rights movement most people have never heard about. During eight tumultuous days in 1988 at the world's only Deaf university, four students must find a way to lead a revolution—and change the course of history.
Anna is twenty-five. Her boyfriend, Louis, is a math teacher. Together, they give birth to a child, Leo. A few months later, the discovery of Leo's deafness is an upheaval.
A deaf 4-year-old girl named Libby lives in a world of silence until a caring social worker teaches her to use sign language to communicate.
WHAT? is a black and white, silent (and signing) comedy about a struggling deaf actor, sick of agreeing to increasingly humiliating tasks just to get a role, who decides to take matters into his own hands.
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.
Three different storylines are skillfully woven together offering three unique perspectives on the Deaf experience: a young Deaf woman struggles to connect with her hearing boyfriend; a Deaf man has an argument with his mother, complicated by an interpreter who wants to take sides; and a Deaf woman encounters barriers during a job interview despite her excellent qualifications. This nuanced film based on real-life experiences challenges viewers to think and engage in meaningful discussion.
A Deafblind fencer and author competes in all arenas just for the right to be seen.
Li Er, a 17 year old girl who has great difficulty hearing out of her left ear, is rejected after confessing her love to a boy, Xu yi. Instead the boy is in love with Li Bala, a girl who is in fact in love with Zhang Yang. Li Er befriends Li Bala, who dies due to an accident. As the movie progresses, Li Er overcomes her hatred of Zhang Yang, whom she blamed for Li Bala's death.
Iva, a troubled teenager trapped between an abusive stepfather and a distant, deaf mother, finds unexpected salvation in a mysterious boy claiming to be Lucifer, a fallen angel sent to guide her. As she wrestles with faith, madness, and destiny, she is trained for a chilling mission: to assassinate a powerful American televangelist hiding a sinister truth beneath his holy image.
Through visual metaphors and circumstantial installations, Chella Man explores his cyborg identity and personal relationship to the freedom and constraints cochlear implants created.
The power of fostering animals in need is undeniable. Hopalong Animal Rescue, based in Oakland, CA, demonstrates this every day. This short film chronicles Tina Quon and Gary Moore, a couple who have dedicated their life together to fostering dogs in need of forever homes. Their pit bull, Nulo, plays a pivotal role, teaching young puppies how to grow into well-behaved, loving adult dogs. Together, they have fostered over 60 dogs – and counting. This documentary shows the ways in which Tina, Gary, and Nulo – along with Hopalong's larger network of over 600 foster homes throughout the Bay Area – have touched so many lives in profound and deeply moving ways.
Angela's deafness raises concerns during her pregnancy regarding connecting with her daughter. Post-delivery, partner Héctor supports her as she learns to mother in a society lacking adequate accommodations for the hearing-impaired.
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.
The life of a deaf African American woman in the early 1900s parallels with another living in the 1990s.
A hybrid short film that merges American Sign Language, contemporary dance, and poetry to tell a deeply personal story about expression, resilience, and the emotional weight of language. Drawing visual inspiration from the experimental dance films of the 1940s, the piece centers a Deaf protagonist whose inner world is revealed not through words, but through movement.
As a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), Ruby is the only hearing person in her deaf family. When the family's fishing business is threatened, Ruby finds herself torn between pursuing her love of music and her fear of abandoning her parents.