About the project

Logline

The creative process of the deaf opens up an unknown closed world, which is more a subculture with its language, rules, and forms of expression, rather than a society of people with disabilities.

Synopsis

Deaf Finnish rapper Signmark, famous for his music, says it’s time to see deaf people as a linguistic minority.

What is produced in sign language is still something untranslatable and unrecognisable to the hearing person. So far, the Western world has invested a lot of money, time and energy in bringing the deaf as close as possible to the hearing, but their world is still untranslatable to us.
Little is known about deaf communities; what they produce – music, lyrics, poetry – often does not reach hearing people. This is primarily due to a lack of dissemination, but the works themselves also require a slightly different perspective. People who live in silence perceive the world differently, and that otherness is hard for us to understand.

We will invite creative deaf people to become not only the heroes of the film, but also the creators. They will show us their world from the inside, and let us feel what it means to be part of a linguistic minority.
We need to let deaf people express themselves, express their pains and joys through artistic means, and express their way of seeing the world. Our task is to allow the audience to see, to feel, to know, to hear that mysterious world. This will enrich our perception of the world and enable us to understand the people who live among us.

Traditionally, culturally, and historically, deaf people have lived in a kind of ghetto, which sounds drastic in these times of openness and unrestricted communication. A ghetto among us, undefined geographically, here and now. People have a unique culture, a language, but they seem to be absent from our everyday life – the sign language interpreter shows mysterious signs on the TV screen… the signs fly by, but the addressee might live behind the wall, in the house next door.

Sound design and mixing are very important in this film. Deaf people perceive the world of sound differently than we do. They can converse freely even in the noisiest places. If they can hear, they usually only hear very low frequencies, the human voice disappears together with high frequencies. Sound effects and silence become the basis of the film’s creation. The sound of the film will have its dramaturgy, development and rhythm, thus allowing the viewer to hear everything with different ears, to feel deaf, to be aware of how frequencies affect our well-being and emotions. Meanwhile, a colourist has the task of using colour tones, contrasts and shades to connect with the sound solutions and create mutual interaction.

The blue whale hears low-frequency sounds from 5 Hz and the bat hears high-frequency sounds up to 130 000 Hz, compared to which we are deaf. Well, maybe not exactly deaf, we are just animals with limited hearing, like penguins or Asian elephants.

Looking for financing, coproduction, industry events, festivals, and presales. Contact: producer Ringailė Leščinskienė, email: ringaile@zerocopy.lt, phone: +37067789371