Seattle Deaf Film Festival 2022 [Online]

Online only: April 8-22, 2022

Individual Virtual Tickets:
$20 General Admission
$15 Student/Senior

Virtual Festival Passes:
$180 General Admission
$165 Student/Senior

About

Welcome to Seattle Deaf Film Festival!

  • Browse the Film Guide to see the films available for this virtual festival.
  • If you’d like access to all the films, you can buy a pass.
  • If you already have your tickets, or you’d like to see individual programs available to purchase, visit the Watch Online page.

SDFF showcases the best Deaf, DeafBlind, DeafDisabled and Hard of Hearing filmmaking in the world. We believe in cultivating a vibrant community of emerging and experienced Deaf filmmakers, actors, and producers.

Image description for header (on desktop): Blue dusk background with mountains on the bottom and pine trees on both sides of the banner. Yellow mustard Sasquatch peers out of a tree and waves on the left. Neon sign for “SEATTLE DEAF FILM FESTIVAL, April 8-22, 2022” on right.


Feature Films:

Changer: A Handtelling

Changer: A Handtelling is an innovative Deaf-centric and Native-centric filmed performance with Deaf Native storytellers performing the Coast Salish myth of Changer in Native and artistic sign language. It is the next evolution of an original play by Fern Naomi Renville (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate) and Roger Fernandes (Lower Elwha S’Klallam, Makah).

Helmed by Deaf director Howie Seago, CODA filmmaker Kyle Seago, and Native filmmaker Raven Two Feathers, Changer: A Handtelling is a cinematic take on Coast Salish origin stories. Filmed on the traditional lands of the Lower Elwha s’Klallam Tribe, the narrative follows mythic characters into a future transformed by tribes exercising sovereign treaty rights.

(Howie Seago, US, 2021, 70 min, in American Sign Language & English)

James Castle, The Silent Way

James Castle is an artist, born profoundly deaf in Garden Valley, Idaho. He spent his life drawing with soot and spit, and painting on recovered cardboard and paper. At the Institution for the Deaf and the Blind of Gooding, he suffered the abuses of oral pedagogy which forced the Deaf to speak and prohibited sign language. James’s work is now exhibited in museums in the United States, Europe, Japan, but do we remember that he was Deaf?

Brigitte Lemaine, who was raised in sign language by Deaf grandparents, goes to meet James’s descendants. On the way, she visits the James Castle Collection & Archive, the James Castle House, and specialists in Deaf Culture. Brigitte identifies themes in James’ work showing that being Deaf is a unique way of seeing and thinking about the world.

(Brigitte Lemaine, France, 2020, 82 min, in American Sign Language & English)

The Voice of DANCE

Deaf and hearing dancers go on a journey to search for Indian dance vocabularies. They also experience the national celebration of the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth, becoming inspired to overcome adversity and follow their dreams.

The Voice of DANCE is a cross-cultural, diversity-focused and socially-inclusive film production with the participation of Hong Kong and Indian artists. Filming took place in Mumbai and New Delhi.

(Chadrashekar R. & Banky Yeung, Hong Kong, 2020, 60 min, in Yue Chinese (Cantonese) with English subtitles)

What?

What? is a black and white, not-so-silent comedy about a struggling Deaf actor. Sick of agreeing to increasingly humiliating tasks just to get a role, he decides to take matters into his own… hands.

(Alek Lev, US, 2021, 90 min, in American Sign Language & English)


Short Film Programs:


Thank you to the sponsors of SDFF 2022!


About Deaf Spotlight:

Deaf Spotlight inspires and showcases Deaf Culture and Sign Languages through the arts.

Deaf Spotlight is a nationally recognized leader in Deaf arts. We emerged from the first Seattle Deaf Film Festival in 2012. Our programming has since expanded to include theater productions, an annual art camp for Deaf youth, curated visual art exhibitions, and workshops for Deaf artists.

About Northwest Film Forum:

Founded in Seattle in 1995 as an independent film and arts nonprofit, Northwest Film Forum incites public dialogue and creative action through collective cinematic experiences. As a comprehensive visual media organization, the Forum offers educational workshops and artist services for film and media makers at all stages of their development.


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Northwest Film Forum
1515 12th Ave,

Seattle, WA 98122

206 329 2629


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