Sundance film to be shown at USU
Jennifer Brennan, Assistant Features Editor
Utah State University will have the chance to view a film from the Sundance Film Festival as a part of Deaf Awareness Week. Student Association of American Instructors of the Deaf (SAAID) is showing the Sundance 2000 film, “Sound and Fury.”
“Sound and Fury,” directed by Josh Aronson, will help viewers explore a world without sound and the controversy that lies with cochlear implants.
Cochlear implants are electrical devices inserted deep into the inner ear, the cochlea. The device sends electrical impulses to the auditory nerve, said Piper Benjamin, SAAID publicity manager.
The film centers on a family from New York City, in which part of the family is deaf and the other part can hear. The parents, who are not deaf, have two sons – one of whom is deaf. The deaf son marries a deaf woman and they have deaf children. The hearing son marries a deaf woman and they have a twin son who is deaf, Benjamin said.
Emotions are stirred as the two families consider the option of cochlear implants for the deaf children.
“It also deals with the issue of when does a parent have a right or not have a right to make a decision like that for the child,” Benjamin said.
SAAID is an organization that explores issues in the deaf and hearing communities.
We try to organize activities that give them (SAAID) exposure to deaf kids, Benjamin said.
Benjamin has been a teacher of deaf children for four years and is now a graduate student.
“I actually saw it twice,” Benjamin said.
“Sound and Fury” will be showing Wednesday and next Friday and Saturday in the Taggart Student Center Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. The movie is free to the public, but a $2 donation to SAAID is suggested.