I just got an email about the documentary See What I'm Saying. It's about four deaf entertainers. (Yes, that's a little "d" -- the website uses little-d "deaf" in many places where I would have expected capital-D "Deaf", even when talking about one performer they describe as being hard-of-hearing and not a native signer and the fact that she's been told that she's "not deaf enough.")
According to the press materials on the website, the film follows "Bob [Hiltermann], a drummer in the world's only deaf rock band" -- That seems like a pretty bold claim. There aren't any deaf teenagers anywhere who have a band? How could you possibly know that? Presumably they mean the only professional band, which is quite possible. But anyway -- "Beethoven's Nightmare, produces the largest show in the band's 30 year history; CJ [Jones], a hugely famous and internationally renowned comic in the Deaf world, but virtually unknown to hearing audiences, fights to cross over to the mainstream by producing the first international sign language theatre festival in Los Angeles; Robert [DeMayo], a brilliant actor who teaches at Juilliard, struggles to survive when he becomes homeless while living with HIV; and TL [Forsberg], a hard of hearing singer finds herself caught between the hearing and deaf communities when she attracts her first major producer to record her first CD 'Not Deaf Enough'."
Something that caught my attention as I read through the material is the claim that this is "the first open-captioned commercial film in American history." (I'm assuming they mean the first one in English, and I'm taking that claim at face value, because I am too lazy to try to verify it.) Compare that, for example, to Touch the Sound, a documentary about a deaf percussionist that was not open captioned in theaters. And it caught my attention for very selfish reasons: I do okay with uncaptioned DVDs because I'm willing to back up and watch scenes over and over, but watching movies in a theater is frustrating at best, and missing auditory information is a big part of that.
My city doesn't show up on the list of screenings, but I signed onto an email list to be notified if it does. Whether it does or not, I hope it ends up being released on DVD -- that's still my preferred method of movie-watching.
