Deaf filmmaker Alison O’Daniel came across a news report about the unsolved theft of tubas at a number of Los Angeles high schools. She wondered how the students would be able to practice without an instrument. This became the starting point for a visual poem about how people across the deafness spectrum experience sound.
The Tuba Thieves does not only tell the story of the theft but uses the event as a central thread for an associative tour of a city filled with sound. We see the impact of aircraft noise on residents, and how instruments can connect hearing and deaf musicians. We become part of a world where sound and silence are reframed for all audiences.
In open captions, the sounds are described as accurately as possible. An inventive sound montage enhances the precise camera work. Gradually it becomes clear that sound and silence are the factors that connect all these apparently independent impressions. More than a documentary, The Tuba Thieves is an auditory experience.
IDFA X De Balie
Australian Jordan Bryon, an experienced journalist and filmmaker, had been in Afghanistan for five years when the Americans withdrew from the country in 2021 and the Taliban took power.
Surrounded by the advancing exponents of modernity—distribution centers, highways, multinationals – he moves through the seasons at his own pace. We follow Gerlach for several years.
The ambiguous play within a play contributes to the realization that there may actually be no distinction between reality and fiction. What role are we playing ourselves?
