Le pays des sourds
France,
1993, 99 min
Shown in 1994
CREDITS
- dir
-
Nicolas Philibert
- cam
-
Frederic Labourasse
- editor
-
Guy Lecorne
- prod co
-
Les Films d’lci; La Sept-Cinema; Centre Européen Cinematographique Rhone-Alpes
- source
-
International Film Circut, Inc.
- gga award
-
Film & Video: Best International Sociology Documentary
- premiere
-
U.S. Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Nicolas Philibert in person.
OTHER
Nicholas Philibert’s remarkable, cinema vérité film draws the viewer into the silent world of the deaf, a world in which people communicate with the poetic language of signs. The subjects range from a blond, saucer-eyed moppet on the verge of tears from the grueling work of learning to say “hello,” to a wise and witty sign-language teacher with a salt-and-pepper beard (himself deaf) who has much to “say” about life. But rather than sentimentalize, In the Land of the Deaf leads a piquant discussion of how society should relate to people with special needs. Prepare to have some of your assumptions about the deaf turned upside down. Learning to talk to hearing people is fine, but what subjects really get excited about is that great epiphanic moment in their lives when they first realized they were not alone and shared contact with other deaf people. As one disgusted young man says, he doesn’t even wear his hearing aid anymore. The world is too full of noise; he prefers the soothing silence of deafness.
—Miguel Pendás
FACTOID #175
In 1967, two years prior to her death, the Festival honored Judy Garland in the first (according to the program note) American homage of her work. Garland was unable to attend.
