The End

Patty Liang  

What happens if there is a cure to eradicate Deafness?  If given a choice, will a deaf person want to be able to hear aka "to be hearing?"  What will happen to the deaf community, culture, and language? This British film, “The End” proposes this premise with stunning visual filmmaking by Ted Evans and an incredible ensemble. We follow four Deaf children from 1980s to 2040s as they grow up.  Eugenics is always in our minds as the film presents a philosophical debate among different people's perspectives: medical, cultural, and educational, what the best solution is for the Deaf people. All four children’s lives take different trajectories as we follow the main characters in the film.  

 
To remove deafness, a person must realize that simply removing that one variable will impact other variables: education, socialization, family, friends, teachers, and more.  The deaf community faces the decision to proceed with the medical procedure to be able to hear or not.  Should they enter the hearing world, leaving behind their Deaf heritage, values, language and culture? Some were willing to do that while others fought for their rights to remain Deaf. 

This film is a haunting reminder for us that whatever way choose to construct our Deaf identify, we still have the right to do what we want and believe in without other people trying to interfere and making decisions for us.

Editor's Note:


You may find the link here on Facebook if you wish to join their fan page, and you can also view the film here on this website by the British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust.  It is truly amazing how the British government's support of BSL filmmaking has led to a high amount of submissions of high quality Deaf films to SDFF!