Deafinition (2019)

Boys On Film 16: Possession

Golden boys, teen lust, self-conscious dolls, chance encounters, a vengeful creature, holiday romance, hidden sexuality — Boys On Film celebrates it's (not so) sweet sixteen with an astonishing selection of the latest international gay short films. Volume 16: Possession features ten complete films: Kai Stänicke's "Golden" with Christian Tesch and Maximilian Gehrlinger; Christopher Manning's "Jamie" starring Sebastian Christophers and Raphael Verrion; Kai Stänicke's "B." starring Susanne Bormann and Andreas Jähnert; Blake Mawson's "PYOTR495" starring Alex Ozerov; Charlie Francis's "When A Man Loves A Woman" starring Tommy Jay Brennan, Jemima Spence, and Diane Brooks Webster; Anthony Schatteman's "Follow Me" starring Ezra Fieremans and Maarten Ketels; Jake Graf's "Chance" starring 'ABS' and Clifford Hume; Andrew Keenan-Bolger's "Sign" starring John McGinty and Preston Sadleir; Oliver Mason's "Away With Me" starring Chris Polick and Lee Knight; and "We Could Be Parents" by Björn Elgerd.

I'll Come to You with Deaf Eyes

This film is a letter to my friend Vincent who died ten years ago. Vincent was Deaf. He introduced me to his language, his culture, his world. Through Vincent ‘s life, the film will examine the roots of the distress that plagues the Deaf, and also explore a rich and fascinating world, a people that struggles to preserve its Sign Language and Culture.

The Sign for Love

In his heartfelt documentary, co-director and subject Elad Cohen explores the meaning and experience of family. Growing up deaf and gay in a family of hearing people, Cohen never felt at home and always felt alone. That feeling of estrangement was exacerbated during his adolescence by the sudden death of his mother and the subsequent rift with his father as the family scattered in different directions. Cohen creates a sense of family with a small group of friends, including his best friend, Yaeli, a deaf woman. While he wants a child and a life partner, he fears that he won’t find the right man in the small deaf community in his “sweet little country.” Sharing a desire with Yaeli to be parents, the new “couple” decide to have a child in a shared parenting arrangement.

Land of Silence and Darkness

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.

Ernie Biscuit

The world of a lonely deaf Parisian taxidermist is turned upside down and back to front when a dead pigeon arrives on his doorstep.

Breaking Silence

A portrait of a Deaf activist and his formerly incarcerated daughter who build new bonds through their experiences in the criminal justice system.

Planet of Snail

Young-Chan comes from planet of snail where deaf blind people live slow and quiet lives. When Young-Chan came to Earth, nobody understood his language and he was desperate. Then an angel walked into his life. Soon-Ho knows how it is to be lonely and soon becomes an inseparable part of his life. Young-Chan also discovers an amazing world under his fingers as he learned to read books with braille. Hopes began to grow and he dreams of writing a book. However, Soon-Ho cannot always be there for him because of her own problem of spine disability. The couple now should learn to survive alone. While Soon-Ho uneasily spends her first day waiting for his return, Young-Chan goes out for the biggest adventure of his life.

SORDOS

Experimental Short Film Documentary made during the social outbreak, follows 2 Deaf people walking through the outbreak in Plaza Dignidad.

Deaf President Now!

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.

Conversation Behind the Scenes

A documentary that follows the story of Dario Pasquarella, deaf director and actor, and his company. Through his work, Dario seeks to bring together the deaf and hearing community, who are usually separated by a lack of communication. In his shows he uses both languages, LIS, sign language and spoken language, to tell stories in which the deaf and hearing can live in symbiosis.

Audible

Football player Amaree McKenstry-Hall and his Maryland School for the Deaf teammates attempt to defend their winning streak while coming to terms with the tragic loss of a close friend.

Princess Alice: The Royals’ Greatest Secret

The life of Princess Alice of Battenberg, Queen Victoria's great-granddaughter, Prince Andrew of Greece's wife and Queen Elizabeth II's mother-in-law. Born deaf, she faced tremendous hardships but found solace in faith and charity work.

A Sonorous Melody

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.

Viktor

Viktor, who was born deaf, worships the figure of the samurai warrior. When bombs start falling on his countryside home in Kharkiv, his quasi-romantic obsession with war is put to the test.

Barrera

Deaf students from Jorge Otte Gabler High School attend a "SIAD" career guidance fair. They discriminate against us.

Setara

A documentary with an aim to raise awareness for workplace discrimination and see the world from the perspective of the deaf community.

Glittering Hands

Despite being deaf Sang-kuk never forgets to smile while he makes furniture. Kyung-hee can't hear either but with her natural beauty and outgoing personality, she enjoys her job at a sign language interpretation center. Between them they have hearing daughter Bora who is a director and a son named Kwang-hee. When, after moving eight times since marriage, Sang-kuk wants to move one more time, Kyung-hee opposes him. In filming the silent world of her parents, the director discovers new stories coming from herself, who grew up moving back and forth between two worlds-one of silence and the other of sound.

Silent Days

The film is separated into four chapters, each tracking a different group of protagonists who all have one thing in common – they were born deaf. Little Sandra likes to play football and admires Ronaldinho. Marián worships trains and wants to be an engine driver. Teenagers Alena and René are expecting a baby and long for it to be born healthy. The trio of Roman, Kristián and Karmen help their parents by collecting junk to be sold and dream of one day having a house with a flush toilet.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

A murder takes place in the shop of David Lyons, a deaf man who fails to hear the gunshot being fired. Outside, blind man Wally Karue hears the shot, but cannot see the perpetrator. Both are arrested, but escape to form an unlikely partnership. Being chased by both the law AND the original killers, can the pair work together to outwit them all?

Dear Frankie

Nine-year-old Frankie and his single mum Lizzie have been on the move ever since Frankie can remember, most recently arriving in a seaside Scottish town. Wanting to protect her deaf son from the truth that they've run away from his father, Lizzie has invented a story that he is away at sea on the HMS Accra. Every few weeks, Lizzie writes Frankie a make-believe letter from his father, telling of his adventures in exotic lands. As Frankie tracks the ship's progress around the globe, he discovers that it is due to dock in his hometown. With the real HMS Accra arriving in only a fortnight, Lizzie must choose between telling Frankie the truth or finding the perfect stranger to play Frankie's father for just one day...

Transit

In an attempt to flee Nazi-occupied France, Georg assumes the identity of a dead author but soon finds himself stuck in Marseilles, where he falls in love with Maria, a young woman searching for her missing husband.

Immortal Beloved

A chronicle of the life of infamous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven and his painful struggle with hearing loss. Following Beethoven's death in 1827, his assistant, Schindler, searches for an elusive woman referred to in the composer's love letters as "immortal beloved." As Schindler solves the mystery, a series of flashbacks reveal Beethoven's transformation from passionate young man to troubled musical genius.

In the Company of Men

Two business executives--one an avowed misogynist, the other recently emotionally wounded by his love interest--set out to exact revenge on the female gender by seeking out the most innocent, uncorrupted girl they can find and ruining her life.

Snail

A loving mother strives to make her young son's singing dreams come true but an audition takes a dramatic, unforeseen turn.

Johnny Got His Gun

A young American soldier, rendered in pseudocoma from an artillery shell from WWI, recalls his life leading up to that point.

Sky Lovers

In a picturesque Guangxi village, deaf Wang Jiakuan falls for Zhu Ling, who is already in love with someone else. Cai Yuzhen, visiting to find her brother, stays with Wang Jiakuan and falls for him. Zhu Ling, pregnant and locked in her room, is discovered by villagers who also learn Cai Yuzhen is mute. Heartbroken, Wang Jiakuan leaves but returns, and Zhu Ling tries to match him with Cai Yuzhen.

Earth and Ashes

Elderly Dastaguir and his newly deaf 5-year-old grandson Yassin hitchhike and walk, but mostly walk, as they make their way to the coal mine where Dastaguir's son Murad works. Dastaguir must tell Murad that the rest of their family were all killed in a recent bomb attack.

The Tribe

Deaf-mute Sergey enters a specialized boarding school for the deaf. In navigating through the school's hierarchy, he encounters a corrupt underbelly of criminality, known as The Tribe. By participating in several robberies, he gets propelled higher into the organization, when he meets one of the Chief’s concubines Anya, and unwittingly breaks all the unwritten rules of the group."

Break Up

Housewife Jimmy Dade stays with her violent husband, Frankie, even after his abuse leads to the loss of her hearing. When his car is found with an unidentifiable dead body inside, police officers John Box and Andrew Ramsey suspect Jimmy has killed him. But, after discovering her bank account has been emptied, Jimmy fears that Frankie is still alive, and she goes on the run -- with the police in pursuit.

Entre miradas

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What?

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.

2018 Oscar Nominated Short Films: Live Action

The year’s most spectacular Live Action short films.

Cow Killer

Naser's sick cow is about to die. Khazar (his granddaughter) wishes for it to survive and the cow is healed. Naser recognizes this as a miracle and goes after other sick cows, along with Khazar, to repeat the miracle.

Jesus: A Deaf Missions Film

God's story is unstoppable when it is in the heart language of a people group. Deaf Missions' Jesus Film uses native signers to bring the story of Jesus to life from a Deaf perspective for a Deaf audience.