Deaffest

Deaffest is mourning the loss of our wonderful patron Richard Griffiths, who sadly died aged 65 last Thursday 28^th March, following complications after heart surgery. We offer our condolences to his family.

The award winning actor famous for many roles on stage and screen including Harry Potter and Withnail & I kindly consented to become Deaffest’s patron last year. In a beautifully hand written letter he told us he was “flattered to be invited to be a patron”. Richard went on to say that “The idea of encouraging Deaf people to get involved in making films, and here I don’t care how big or small the scale of the product, strikes me as being excellent”. Richard felt that “the visual attention of the camera’s eye” would be “more sensitive and striking” in films made by Deaf film makers.

Richard agreed to an exclusive interview for Zebra Uno in July last year at London’s Savoy Theatre, where he discussed his childhood growing up with Deaf parents and offered advice for Deaf film makers and actors. During the interview Richard surprised us by signing throughout, making it an unforgettable experience for all of us present and giving a unique perspective on this thoughtful and multi talented man.

The Richard Griffiths interview will be premiered at Deaffest on Friday evening 17^th May 2013 at Light House Wolverhampton.

Ambassador abroad!

Catch up with Young Deaffest’s Ambassador Alex Nowak on his adventures in Sri Lanka! Alex is teaching in a Deaf school there…

“Firstly, am deeply saddened and shocked to hear about Mr. Griffiths. May he rest in peace.

Sri Lanka is going great, am learning loads and teaching is such a rewarding experience. In the past month, I’ve been rehearsing with 8 young deaf girls, putting together a performance based on the theme of ‘Christmas’. We performed the play to the whole school yesterday (03/04/13) and it was a total success – I’m really proud of the children. We used a mixture of toilet paper and wool for snow and a tropical plant as a Christmas tree!

You can catch up on my Sri Lankan journeys by reading my blog here – http://nowakinsrilanka.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/sri-lankan-adventures/

The picture is of me and the principal (Mr. Abeygunawardhana) of Rohana Special School in Matara, Sri Lanka, promoting this years’ Deaffest”.

Now don’t get too comfortable there in Sri Lanka Alex, we expect you back in Wolverhampton in time for Deaffest!

We are delighted to announce the Young Deaffest 2013 film nominations!

We have had a record number of submissions this year, and Caroline O’Neill our Young Deaffest Judge had this to say about the standard of films:

“I think for me, films should be about escapism – getting away from who you are. It was great to watch all the films and I’m absolutely staggered by the young talent out there. Thanks for involving me!”

The five nominated films are:

Stargazer

Dir. The Arches Youth Club, Solar Bear and Hillhead High School

A bitter sweet tale of love and loss. Matt stargazes, searching the sky every night looking for signs of his departed wife. Keeping him company is his plucky companion, Jockie the dog. Matt is planning a surprise for his Grandson Tony. Overnight something changes; will Tony ever find out what his Grandfather had planned?

That’s not all of me

Dir. Eelyn Lee, Hayley McWilliams

Deaf children across the UK submitted poems to the Life & Deaf website between 2006 and 2011. These poems represent a broad range of positive and negative thoughts and feelings about deafness and identity. To honour this body of work, extracts from over 50 of these poems were woven together to create the collective poem “That’s not all of me”. This poem formed the basis of the script for the short film. Deaf young people aged 11 – 22 collaborated with creative professionals, participating as writers, consultants, actors, make-up artists and producers to create the moving short film “That’s not all of me”.

Decorating Disaster

Dir. Charlotte O’Connor

Lola, a young deaf girl was inspired by a TV programme and wants to be an interior designer. She must raise money to go to New York, but will her friends help her to achieve her dream?

I Won’t do that again!

Dir. William Horsefield

Jake in an amateur scientist and he is 19 years old. He makes a special control panel which clones people. He wants to it by cloning himself, however the control panel goes wrong because of a loose wire. Jake tries to fix the problem but he faces mysterious happenings. In this film you will find out if Jake solves the problem.

US.

Dir. Michaela Caspar

“Why did they all come here?” US., that’s 20 Deaf, hard-of-hearing, multiply impaired and hearing teenagers and young adults from Berlin in between 17 and 245. Almost all of them have a migrant

background. They come from Azerbaijan, Serbia, Armenia, Egypt, Palestine, Germany, Vietnam, Mexico and Turkey. For the last 4 years they have performed together in a drama group. In this film they explore their backgrounds as immigrants, family history and place in society, partly by absurd actions, partly with a poetic point of view. US. features German Sign Language, signed German, spoken Russian, spoken German and written English.

The winning film will be announced at the Young Deaffest Award Presentation on Saturday 18^th May, at 11.20am.