The Silent Natural

A new film called The Silent Natural debuts tonight in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. It tells the story of William Ellsworth “Dummy” Hoy who played in the baseball major league from 1888 to 1902. Hoy slugged "41 home runs, 605 stolen bases and one game in which he threw out three baserunners at home plate from the outfield." Read more in the Columbus Monthly here or watch the trailer for the film below.

Jester

Deaf filmaker Austin Chapman has created a Kickstarter page to help fund his first feature film. Chapman says Jester will show viewer his "experience growing up in a silent world and hearing music for the first time at 23 years old." You can see the Kickstarter page here and below is the short film on which Jester is based, called Eleven Eleven.

Deaf Boys Film banned at Film Fests

A sex abuse film that points the finger at the Vatican will be shown in U.S. theaters starting next month (Nov 16). Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney put together Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God. It follows the abuse of deaf boys at a Milwaukee Catholic church to a Vatican coverup. The Venice and Rome film festivals banned the film, due to Vatican influence. Father Lawrence Murphy taught at the St. John’s School for the Deaf in Wisconsin and is believed to have molested hundreds of pupils for more than two decades. Murphy never faced any discipline from the church - even after his abuse became known. The five students interviewed in the film use ASL to explain what they endured. You can see a preview here.

A Life Without Words

A new film about the deaf debuts at a UK film fest this Friday (June 22). A Life Without Words will show at the Open City Docs Fest. A Life Without Words tells the story of Dulce Maria and her brother Francisco. Born deaf on a farm in Nicaragua, they have never been more than a few miles from their rural home. Their lives change when visited by a deaf sign language teacher. For more information, click here.

Lost and Sound

A documentary about the deaf debuts at a UK film fest this Sunday. Lost & Sound will show at the Sheffield Documentary Festival. In Lost & Sound a music reviewer has to relearn how to listen to music, an accomplished cellist and pianist lost her hearing to meningitis as a child and deaf dancer Emily gets into an important European dance school. Director Lindsey Dryden is partially deaf herself. Find out more about the showing here. The trailer for the film is posted below on DeafNewsToday.com.

Just Listen

Deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie is the focus of a film called Just Listen which explores the science of sound. It's being shot in 3-D in Vancouver and the Scottish artist will both perform and narrate. Glennie feels the vibrations through her bare feet.

Behind the Scenes of Deaf Jam

Take a look behind the scenes of Deaf Jam as PBS interviews the director here.

Deaf Jam Sample

Deaf Jam is a film about the power of American Sign Language poetry. See a three minute sample below on DeafNewsToday.com.

Hammer Trailer

Below is a preview of the new film The Hammer Trailer which is based on the career of UFC fighter Matt Hamill. It releases nationwide on October 27th.

Call for Film Fest Entries

The Seattle Deaf Film Festival is accepting entries for the 2012 event, taking place March 30 through April 1st at the University of Washington. Filmmakers can submit a feature or short film in these categories: documentary, drama, animation, suspense/action and comedy/musical. Films must be subtitled or captioned in English. The deadline for film submissions is November 30. Find out more here.

Award-winning Film

A film about a deaf man in Cuba has won an award at a New York film festival. Habana Muda earned director Eric Brach a Special Jury Prize at NewFest. Habana Muda is the story of Chino, who struggles to raise two children with his wife, but also has a wealthy boyfriend in Mexico who works for a Deaf organization.

Docu Playing in NO

The documentary From Silence to Sound is playing in New Orleans at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center today through next Tuesday as part of the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference and Exhibit. It's the story of a deaf man who goes through implant surgery, becoming the first double implant recipient in Oklahoma.

Out on DVD

A documentary called In the Land of the Deaf or Le Pays des sourds is out on DVD this week. The 1992 film by French director Nicolas Philibert follows the lives of deaf people of all ages and walks of life. The film is presented French Sign Language and French, with English subtitles and closed captions. Philibert's uses little dialogue to let the subjects to communicate their feelings. It earned a Peabody Award for excellence.

Looking Back... the First Film

The earliest known film depicting a deaf person and sign language is one of a collection of short clips made by Thomas Edison to demonstrate what "moving picture films" could do in 1902. In the film, a deaf woman recites the Star Spangled Banner in sign language. Made by the American Mutoscope and Biograph company, The Library of Congress has preserved a paper print copy of the film, but the film itself was not preserved, and the identity of the woman, is unknown.

Theater Captioning

Cinemark will put closed-captioning equipment in all of its 64 California theaters in the next year. The agreement is part of its settlement of a lawsuit filed in Alameda County, California against the nation's third-largest movie chain by Disability Rights Advocates out of Berkeley, California. Cinemark says about half of those 64 theaters already have wireless captioning devices that include a visor to shield the caption from other patrons. The two other big theater chains, Regal and AMC, offer some captioning and is facing lawsuits in other states.

Hamill Review

The new film about a deaf wrestler titled Hamill will be shown in Philadelphia Saturday. Read a review here.

SXSW Fest

One of the speakers at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin was visual storyteller Robyn Girard. She tries to bring together deaf and hearing audiences through film and animation. She talked about how deaf people are portrayal in movies. Her most recent project is titled 101 Things That Unite and Divide. It explores storytelling in Deaf Culture using design, animation and film. Here's a video interview with her.