Hailing from Italy, Giuseppe Giuranna, or in the words of the Deaf Community, the Visual Vernacular king, himself thanked the Deaffest team for founding the Visual Vernacular Competition, and praised the performers for taking part in the competition at Deaffest 2013 which was won by Adam Bassett.
In this short video by WebSourd, a Deaf company providing services of accessibility in France, Giuseppe was interviewed by Olivier Calcada, who asked him about the incredible expansion of interest in Visual Vernacular across the globe. Giuseppe proclaimed that he was taken aback by the vast embrace of Visual Vernacular across Europe then mentioned that a Visual Vernacular festival happened recently in England, where he thanked the Deaffest team for making the competition happen, congratulated Adam Bassett on his victory, and mentioned that he could not wait until he gets to witness Adam Bassett’s Visual Vernacular that landed him the crown of being the UK’s Visual Vernacular champion.
Being recognised for our hard efforts by someone like Giuseppe Giuranna brightens our Tuesday because we do not do Mondays, and we appreciate that Giuseppe Giuranna has reached out to us and praised the festival and its performers, William Johnson, Rinkoo Barpaga, Jason Sharpe, David Sands, Zoë McWhinney, Ishtiaq Hussian, Brian Duffy and the winner, Adam Bassett. The Deaffest team would like to take this opportunity to thank the brave performers for deciding to perform their Visual Vernacular expressions front of a packed audience on Saturday. The Deaffest team is working hard to expand the success of the Visual Vernacular competition for 2014 festival and what we have got planned excites us, and we hope to bring these plans to fruition for Deaffest 2014!
To see the interview with Giuseppe in International Sign, go to 5 minute and 37 seconds mark in this video by WebSourd here.
Congratulations to Ted Evans, whose film Retreat won the prestigious Best Film Award at the Clin d’Oeil Festival of Deaf Culture in Reims, France. Ted was the winner of Deaffest’s £5000 Ben Steiner Bursary award last year, and his gripping short film Retreat was the culmination of all his hard work on the project. The film was premiered at Deaffest on 17th May this year, going on to win the award at Clin d’Oeil in July. “I’m very honoured to have won best film for Retreat at Festival Clin d’Oeil” said Ted, “to win this award again is extra special and I would like to thank my hard working cast and crew who absolutely deserve this award. I’d also like to thank the Ben Steiner Bursary and Deaffest for giving me the opportunity to make this film. Hopefully we can see more films funded by the bursary compete at international level in the future.”
The Ben Steiner Film Bursary is a bursary for talented emerging Deaf and hard of hearing film makers over the age of 21, held bi-annually at Deaffest. Participating film makers pitch their film concept to a judge panel and the winner receives £5000 to create their film project. The completed film is premiered at Deaffest the following year.
Pictured with Ted is Brian Duffy who scooped two awards for his film Strangers at Clin d’Oeil: Best Director and Best Actor for the talented young William Grint. Strangers is a thought provoking drama which was made as part of the BSL Zone’s Zoom filmmaking scheme, and also premiered at Deaffest this year.
Here are more winning comments from some of the personalities at Deaffest 2013…
At first, I didn’t want to go to the VV competition but someone put my name down for it without my permission. I thought “oh what the hell!” When my name was revealed as the VV winner I was about to pinch my arm but it was nice surprise. I owe someone then, teehee! Never felt so proud, but something that’s missing is an award. Prize money may be nice but hey, they got beautiful awards for the Film Gala Awards, I’m jealous. Deaffest 2013 weekend is amazing and I loved every minute! I’m VV winner! Yorkshire!!! Teehee! – Adam Bassett, VV winner
Deaffest 