At the 94th Academy Awards last week, "CODA" won Best Picture. That focus on the daughter of a deaf family was undeniably one of the year's best.
There was another deafness-themed production nominated that night. Matthew Ogens's "Audible" focuses on the Maryland School for the Deaf, and how the students play sports as well as come to terms with a friend's suicide.
Most of the documentary is told in sign language with subtitles. Rarely have I seen something like this. One of the most impressive documentary shorts out there. Definitely check it out.
Audible
2021
Action / Documentary / Sport
Audible
2021
Action / Documentary / Sport
Keywords: deafhigh school footballloss of a friend
Plot summary
Audible is a cinematic and immersive coming of age film, documenting the journey of Maryland School for the Deaf high school athlete Amaree McKenstry-Hall. Amaree and his closest friends face the pressures of senior year while grappling with the realities of venturing off into a hearing world. They take out their frustrations on the football field as they battle to protect an unprecedented winning streak, while coming to terms with the tragic loss of a close friend. This is a story about kids who stand up to adversity and demand to be heard. They face conflict, but approach the future with hope - shouting to the world that they exist and they matter.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB 2160p.WEBMovie Reviews
deafness-themed movies made their mark at the Oscars
Great one
I like this one. For some this can be seen as poverty porn or exploitation, but I think this kind of films/docs are necessary to show us a different reality and a reality that...should not be a reality anymore. Especially in the US. Honestly, I don't know what the hell you all are doing wrong to have so many people on this situation (or the health costs, or the guns problems or...),being the most powerful and 1st economy in the world...
Interesting POV from these people and I must admit that some looks in the eyes of these people where authentic punches in my soul.
Could be better
Competing for the Oscars 2022 in the short film documentary category, it is directed by Matthew Ogens.
The film follows Amaree, a teenager who plays on an American football team. The difference is that he is deaf, as well as the coach and all the team members. The team competes for the national championship, playing and beating teams with hearing players. A defeat, after more than 40 victories in a row, made the whole team unite even more towards the common goal, which was to overcome that obstacle and win the championship.
Director Ogens intersperses moments of the team with interviews with some players, among them Amaree, with the adoptive parents of a player who committed suicide at age 15 due to bullying he suffered at the listening school, and with members of the cheerleaders, among them a gay teenager, Amaree's friend, whose first love was just the boy who killed himself.
Although it's a documentary, in the moments when the players are in the locker room or on the field, the scenes felt rehearsed, scripted, not spontaneous. It was as if the director were directing a fiction.
This lack of spontaneity in the teams' scenes is a point that leaves the documentary without life, it doesn't take off, staying in the same way until its conclusion.
The coach's testimony, at the end, is very interesting, as he says that together, the boys overcame the challenges and obstacles of a deaf person on the football field, but he was sure they would face greater obstacles and prejudices when they left that bubble.