“Deaf President Now!” marks the powerful directorial debut of out queer Deaf filmmaker Nyle DiMarco. Co-directed with Davis Guggenheim, the documentary recounts the 1988 student protests at Gallaudet University — the world’s only university designed specifically for Deaf and signing students — after the Board of Trustees appointed Elisabeth Zinzer, a hearing woman with no ties to the Deaf community, as president.
Through interviews with four student activists — Greg Hlibok, Jerry Covell, Tim Rarus and Bridgette Bourne-Firl — as well as recreations and archival footage, DiMarco shows how the Deaf community organized and fought to have a Deaf president now!
DiMarco, with the help of Paul, a sign language interpreter, spoke with PGN about making “Deaf President Now!”
You have acted and produced documentaries, like “Audible,” in the past. What made you co-direct this film, and what was that experience like?
For a while, I had it in the back of my mind to take a chance as a director or co-director. This project was important to me because I grew up knowing about this story. I come from a huge Deaf family. I am fourth-generation Deaf. This is a big story within our community, and also with my family as well. I went to a residential school for the Deaf and every year, we would do research projects on this movement so having the opportunity to make “Deaf President Now!,” it should have a Deaf person [directing] and Deaf people behind the scenes. This is similar to the actual movement; the [students] wanted a Deaf president to lead them, because that was the best approach at that time. I wanted to do this story justice. I was in talks with Davis, my co-director, and he asked, “Would you be willing to co-direct?” and I was up for it. I learned so much about how to tell a story in a certain way and the best way to make it digestible. “Deaf President Now!” is a complex story and has a lot of layers.
You attended Gallaudet decades after the events depicted in the film. Many of the subjects in “Deaf President Now!” talk about Gallaudet being, “a place where Deaf people can be deaf.” Did you work with the university to make this film?
Gallaudet really is a mecca for and of the Deaf community. I was born a few years after the movement happened, and I went to Gallaudet in 2007. A lot of the people there during the Deaf President Now! (DPN) [movement] were working as staff or teachers. I asked Gallaudet if we had their blessing to make the film. We didn’t have to have their approval, but they wanted to do it, and they gave us 40 hours of archive materials from the movement. We digitized it ourselves, which was a great partnership to have with them.
You are known as a Deaf activist. Would you have participated in the protests had you been at Gallaudet during that pivotal week in 1988? Or, perhaps I should ask, which of the interviewees did you align with? Are you like Jerry, who is outspoken, or more like Greg who is rational and quiet? Or Tim who is enthusiastic, or Bridgette, who is strong and assertive?
I have my Jerry days — but I think I am more like Tim. Drawing from my own behaviors at Gallaudet when I attended, I probably would have been more of a behind-the-scenes person supporting the four student leaders.
The film is inspiring — and I hate to use that word whenever I talk about disability, because it is condescending — but the film invites me to think: Would I have done this? How would you have behaved, which is why I asked that question of you.
Protests in general can be pretty inspiring. During DPN, they were teens — 18 and 19 years old — leading this huge protest that got the world’s attention. They did it really well. Obviously, there were disagreements, or times where they had differences of opinion. Bridgette had her feminist perspective, and wanted a female president, but they weren’t Deaf. They had to overcome their differences during the movement because they were working towards a bigger goal. That itself is inspiring. If we parallel it to what is going on in the political landscape in America today, there are so many disagreements and differences of opinion that these [current] protests are not as successful as they could be. Watch this story to see how protests can be effective!
The film uses interviews, recreations and archival footage. Can you describe your approach to presenting this story?
It all depended on what footage we would have. We thought it would be limited so we had to be creative. When we got the 40 hours of footage. Our editor, Michael Harte, did a great job editing the film and putting [the elements] together. He gave us four hours of the best clips from the archive, so we watched that footage and wondered how could we play around with the Deaf point of view and visual noise and incorporate that into the film? We asked, “What things from the DPN Four and their history should we include?” So, we [featured] their family histories and where they come from.
I like how you humanize the subjects. We feel we get to know them as people.
When we were first talking with them a few years ago, we had a Zoom call with all four subjects. We asked lighthearted questions. They said we all got along really well, and loved each other, and it was easy, and they knew what they were going to do, and that they would win, and I said, “That’s bullshit!” You can’t say that there was absolutely no drama. Of course, there is going to be drama. We need to interview them individually, and that is where we got the interesting content from.
We have to discuss the critical use of sound and abrupt silence in the film. What decisions did you make regarding sound?
I wanted hearing people to have a better understanding of what the Deaf experience is like and give them a glimpse into that. We weren’t sure which parts of the film or clips to do that. I had a certain perspective, and Davis had his perspective. When [Jane Bassett] Spilman [former Chair of Gallaudet University’s Board of Trustees] says “It is awfully hard to speak above this loud noise” [in an archival scene where an alarm is disrupting her address to the students] I thought, how could we play up that moment and show the different perspectives that were happening in that space for the hearing and the Deaf people? We called that the “Deaf point of view.” We were thinking about how can we get hearing people to understand that experience? We also want Deaf people who are watching this to feel this is the experience they had as Deaf people. At the same time, hearing people are getting the experience of what it was like to be Deaf.
You are also a member of the queer community. Can you talk about any plans to make a queer, Deaf project and bring visibility to the queer disabled community?
Yes, I would be open to doing something like that. The first project I worked on, “Deaf U,” had two queer people [featured] in that film. Half of our crew was Deaf, and half hearing, and half of the Deaf crew were queer. I always try to bring in people from my own community into a project. At some point, I would love other Deaf queer people to share their stories.
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