A call for change: sign language cinema and the politics of visual storytelling

The relationship between sign language and the recorded moving image is unique – film is the only true medium for retaining the spatial, temporal, and visual nature of sign languages. Yet this linguistic integrity remains largely unrealised, as film and television industries maintain barriers that prevent Deaf creators from accessing positions of creative authority. I address this paradox: the screen’s capacity to perfectly capture sign languages versus the industry’s oblique and persistent refusal to entrust Deaf filmmakers with creative leadership. As a researcher and Deaf writer-director with over 20 years in the film industry, I examine how hearing culture’s hegemony maintains audiocentric practices through casting, cinematography, narrative tropes, and production hierarchies. Through production studies analysis, I propose crucial distinctions between authentic deaf casting and what I call ‘Deaf authorial control’.¹ This article outlines a path toward authentic Deaf authorial control encompassing writing, directing, and producing roles – the key creative positions shaping screen texts from conception to distribution. This article challenges the current paradigm whereby Deaf stories are frequently told through hearing perspectives. This demands recognition that Deaf creators bring not only linguistic and cultural authenticity but also inherent visual approaches that benefit the artform itself, regardless of subject matter.