See What I'm Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary

This multi-award winning documentary offers a rare and powerful glimpse into the lives of four extraordinarily talented Deaf entertainers (actor Robert DeMayo, singer TL Forsberg, drummer Bob Hiltermann, and comedian CJ Jones) as they strive to cross over into mainstream popular culture. Their intertwined and gripping stories bring to light the universal need to be seen. Director Hilari Scarl, whose involvement with the Deaf community began when she toured with the National Theatre of the Deaf, insightfully captures the many obstacles these performers face daily with equal measures of humor and emotion. The New York Times Critics’ Pick calls it “Complex, candid and all-but essential viewing for hearing audiences” and USA Today raves, "Hilari Scarl's powerful and moving film about the unsung community of deaf entertainers does something few documentaries accomplish: It takes us into a world we know little or nothing about and not only enlightens, but entertains. Scarl has captured the humor, heartbreak and pathos of a world we once viewed only from the outside, if at all.” The film traces a year in the lives of Bob Hiltermann, a drummer in the deaf rock band Beethoven’s Nightmare, who produces the largest show in the band’s 30 year history; CJ Jones (Baby Driver), an internationally-renowned comic in the Deaf community, who produces the first International Sign Language Festival in Los Angeles; Robert DeMayo (Sign With Robert), a brilliant actor who teaches at Juilliard while struggling to survive when he becomes homeless while living with HIV; and TL Forsberg (Switched at Birth), a hard of hearing singer who finds herself caught between the hearing world and the Deaf community when she attracts her first major producer to record her album.