Deaf President Now!
The world of the deaf is rendered loud and clear in a stirring new documentary.
Tim Rarus, Greg Hlibok, Bridgetta Bourne-Firl and Jerry Covell.
Courtesy of Apple Original Films.
When Gallaudet University opened its doors to the hard of hearing, it offered a home to thousands of like-minded people, “where deaf people could be deaf.” Even so, there was a sense of prejudice, where the students felt discriminated against by the school’s board of trustees. So one week in 1988 saw a surge of dissent as four ‘vocal’ students (Bridgetta Bourne-Firl, Jerry Covell, Greg Hlibok and Tim Rarus) led the charge to instate one of their own in the top office.
Whether they like it or not, deaf people are in a minority. But that doesn’t mean they are inferior to a hearing person. Gallaudet University (in Washington DC) is the only higher education institution in the world designed for the deaf and hard of hearing. However, it took 124 years until the school allowed an actual deaf person to run it. Following the highly public protest, the hearing-impaired I. King Jordan Jr. was signed in as president, which must have felt to the Gallaudet students every bit as momentous as when Barack Obama was elected to the White House.
Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim’s slick documentary chronicles the protests and demonstrations with the help of ample news footage of the time, TV interviews and the talking heads of five of the key players. The year was 1988, the same year that Die Hard was released and when the Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down over Lockerbie by a terrorist bomb, which might suggest that Deaf President Now! is maybe a day late and a dollar short. But as incursions into minorities’ freedom seem to be on the rise, the documentary is a reminder of how activism can actually get things done. The filmmaker Nyle DiMarco is himself a deaf campaigner, while his co-director is no stranger to the form, having helmed Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, He Named Me Malala and the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth (2006). The film also skilfully penetrates the domain of the deaf, cutting from the ear-piercing noise of Pennsylvania Avenue to the world of complete silence of its interviewees. Jerry objects even to the phrase “hearing impaired.” “We are not impaired!” he screams in sign language. I. King Jordan himself strives to delete the “dis” in disability.
The documentary could hardly have been better assembled, aided by spirited turns from its participants. Yet it’s ironic that the most affecting moment is engineered by Guggenheim’s stirring inclusion of ELO’s ‘Mr Blue Sky’ on the soundtrack, an emotive anthem that the students of Gallaudet will never actually be able to share.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Featuring Bridgetta Bourne-Firl, Jerry Covell, Greg Hlibok, Tim Rarus, I. King Jordan Jr, Jane Bassett Spilman, and the voices of Tim Blake Nelson and Leland Orser.
Dir Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim, Pro Nyle DiMarco, Davis Guggenheim, Amanda Rohlke, Jonathan King and Michael Harte, Ph Jonathan Furmanski, Pro Des Mars Feehery, Ed Michael Harte, Music Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders.
Concordia Studio-Apple Original Films/Apple TV+.
100 mins. USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 16 May 2025. Cert. 12.
