Bringing a voice to silence By Amaris Elliott-Engel The Citizen Auburn, NY

The first time Nanci Linke-Ellis watched the 1992 Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston film, "The Bodyguard," she sobbed. Linke-Ellis was not emotionally overwhelmed by the soppy film; she started crying because it was the first time she was able to understand an entire movie. Linke-Ellis, who was born completely deaf and is now able to hear due to a cochlear implant, had never been able to follow an entire movie without confusion before she watched the open captioned print of the "The Bodyguard" in the early 1990s. Open captioned films are English language films with enhanced English subtitles, including indications of music and other sounds. "You can't understate the importance of including everyone in American culture. Movies are where our idioms and language comes from. Even down to expressions like 'life is like a box guage comes from. Even down to expressions like 'life is like a box of chocolates,'" said Linke-Ellis, who is the founder and executive director of InSight Cinema, which functions as a sub-distributor of open captioning films along with major studios and movie chains. Two films with open captioning sub-distributed by InSight Cinema are being screened this weekend at a drive-in theater in Minetto, located about 40 miles northeast of Auburn. Advocates for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community say that open captioning affords people with hearing difficulties full participation in mainstream popular culture. Since the films include a full soundtrack as well, friends and family with full hearing can also enjoy the open captioned films. Movie theaters offering open captioning include Binghamton, Ithaca and Rochester. An open caption film is screened every day at the Regal Theater in Henrietta, a suburb of Rochester, because of the large number of deaf students enrolled at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Dan Farfaglia, who is hard-of-hearing, and his girlfriend, Manda Sievers, who is completely deaf, decided to try to bring an open caption film to a drive-in theater after Sievers became intrigued by Farfaglia's love of drive-in movies. Farfaglia and Sievers approached his high school science teacher, John Nagelschmidt, who owns the Midway Drive-In Theatre in Minetto to screen open-captioned films at his drive-in this week. The inspiration for their effort came after Sievers watched the foreign film Shaolin Soccer, which had English subtitles, and wanted to share the movie-watching experience with others who are deaf. "My girlfriend has gone to movies before and was lost," Farfaglia said. "She pretty much had to use her imagination." "It's very easy to get lost," Farfaglia said. "Open-captioned movies take care of all that." The advantage of open captioning for a deaf or hard-of-hearing person is far superior to the next-best alternative: lip-reading. Lip-reading doesn't work, Farfaglia said, if a voice-over is used in the film, or if the actor speaking is not facing the screen. Animated films are also impregnable to the deaf or hard-of hearing because "you can't read the lips of animated characters." Farfaglia and Sievers hope they can make the open caption screenings an annual event at the Midway Drive-In Theatre, and that more open-captioned films will be offered regionally in regular movie theaters. "We're hoping some indoor theaters might take notice and offer them soon," Farfaglia said. Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net   This article reprinted by permission of The Citizen, © 2004.

A Year of InSight -- InFocus, November 2003

Finally, big-screen movies for the deaf -- By BRAD BURKE of the Journal Star July 9, 2004