Last week we showed you how the Oscar win for The Silent Child and the huge box office success of A Quiet Place is making 2018 the year of sign language in film for the United States and Europe.
To continue this most necessary advocacy of deaf education, the UK Council of Deafness has made this week, May 14–20, the official Deaf Awareness Week of 2018. While there have been many Deaf Awareness Weeks in years past, this may finally be the year (thanks to movies) that it breaks wide open into the mainstream conversation.
Capping off this week is an historic moment in televised advertising. Aldi, the grocery chain, has sponsored the first-ever ad break done completely in sign language. It stars none other than Maisie Sly, the star of The Silent Child, who gave a performance that won the Oscar voters’, as well as the world’s, hearts.
The Silent Child’s influence on deaf awareness culture has clearly been for good, and if you haven’t had a chance to see the 2018 Oscar-winner, what better time to watch than now! But since you’ve got all week to spread the word about this very important cause, we thought we’d give you a list of five other short films, also available now to watch, that deal with deafness and society in a poignant and artful way.
#1 — The Kiss
There is no better way to start Deaf Awareness Week than with a comedic short with a moral at the center. Directed by Charlie Swinbourne, a writer and filmmaker who is partly deaf and fluent in BSL (British Sign Language), The Kiss starts as a story we’ve all seen before: awkward first date at a coffee shop. However, things start to get interesting when the couple tries to get the attention of the couple next to them, who they find out are deaf. What starts as a humorous crash course in societal matters quickly becomes a sort of lighthearted deaf revenge story. Full of satire and heart, The Kiss reminds us that deaf people are just as playful and as capable of finding love as the non-deaf.
#2 — Signs of an Affair
Another comedy, though this time quite a bit darker. Presented by the British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust, this 28-minute short film runs in the style of an Annie Hall, as a woman directly addresses the audience regarding her marital problems. She recalls how a suspicious look into her husband’s business ended with her doing prison time. There are many silly and quirky moments along the way, including a clever scene involving a sign language marriage crisis hotline. High production value combined with a real commitment to zippy sign language banters results in a very special short film experience.
#3 — Deaf
This is the shortest film on the list (clocking in at just under 5 minutes) and is also the sweetest. It also happens to be the only short film listed here that is nearly all silent, truly putting its audience inside a deaf person’s experience. What starts out as a typical girl-pursues-boy story quickly becomes something wholly, and surprisingly, different. This short’s subversion of expectations prove refreshing and hopefully reminds us to steer clear of stereotyping deaf characters and situations in the future.
#4 — Dawn of the Deaf
If the title wasn’t clear enough, this one’s a post-apocalyptic/horror short, though not in the way one would expect. Made in part by the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, this short film fest phenomenon (official selections at Sundance, BAFTA and Fantastic Fest, to name a few) manages to tackle issues of sexual abuse, same-sex relationships and the stigmatization of deafness in society all before its more genre premise kicks in. Dawn of the Deaf proves that films about deaf people can be mature, timely, and very, very bloody.
#5 — Young and Deaf: Dean’s Story
We close with a short documentary put on by the New Zealand-based Attitude Live. It’s an inspiring story about Dean Buckley, a deaf boy living out in reality what The Silent Child depicted fictionally: neglectful funding and lack of awareness regarding deaf education. Realizing at an early age how little his society (and in particular, his education system) understood how to help deaf children learn and communicate, Dean took his desire for change to Youth Parliament. It’s a story of courage and resiliency in the face of societal misunderstanding about deaf culture, and perfectly sums up what Deaf Awareness Week is all about.
