Friday, November 05, 2004
Emmanuelle Laborit
From Wednesday til today, Gallaudet was hosting a conference, Narrating Deaf Lives. Some of the lectures/panels were very interesting. One of the guest speakers was Emmanuelle Laborit. Emmanuelle is a famous Deaf actress in France, like America has Marlee Matlin. (Although I've heard LOTS of stories of how MM is really snobbish towards her own people. But that is a whole different story.)
Anyways, I had heard about the conference in the weeks before it happened. I became excited about it when I found out that Emmanuelle would be there.
You see, I was in a movie, Secret Love, with her in 2000 or 2001 (gosh, I old that I can't remember the year). Cliff, Rebecca, Kathleen (from Belgium) and I were all in one scene with her. The 5 of us had a blast together as we acted in various locations at Gallaudet and in Georgetown. It was really interesting. The 4 of us using ASL, Emmanuelle using LSF, an interpreter, a German director, a Swiss or Swedish producer all working together. Even though we were all using different languages, we were able to understand each other and complete what we were supposed to do.
After the last shot, in Georgetown (this shot was cut), we all congratulated each other. After everything was done, all the crew members (all Europeans) brought out beer and starting drinking in public. The 4 of us were like...no, no, no, it's against the law to drink in public. The Europeans were like...just drink and stop being obvious. So, the 4 of us looked at each other and grabbed a beer for ourselves. Yet, we couldn't help but look around. After a few gulps of beer, we were able to relax and have a good time.
After that, it was about almost a year later when this film was shown in film festivals across America and Canada. KT and I got to watch it. (Kathleen and I were the only ones, in the film, to have watched it. Rebecca and Cliff both missed it.) I'll tell you...it's a good movie. The humor in it was pretty good! There were other Deafies featured in there as well, such as fellow ASP bro, Jerry Claus and I believe another bro was in there as well, William Windhorn.
Anyways, it was good to see her once again, yesterday. She remembered me and gave me a hug. Saw her again with Kathleen today. She is really a humble actress and emits such beauty around her.
She gave a really good lecture today about the book she wrote, Cry of the Gull (shown at beginning of this entry). She used a mixture of ASL, LSF and international signs (just to clarify for non-signers...signs is not universal!) OMG! You must must see me so I can show you her sign for Bush. I know that Ridor would just absolutely love it! I think just about the whole audience laughed when she showed us her sign for Bush. Hilarious!
After her lecture, Kathleen and I both went up to her to ask if her films, especially Secret Love, would be distributed in America. Finances was the biggest reason. Shucks! I'd love to own a copy of it.
I was talking to Dr. Dirksen Bauman about the film. He mentioned that maybe we could invite the director to America and open up the possibility to distribute Emmanuelle's films in America. Wouldn't that be lovely?!?! Also, RIT will be hosting a Deaf film festival in March 2005. There is a possibility that Secret Love will be shown there. Oh, I MUST MUST go! Terrylene will be there as well, another American Deaf actress.
She's been in 9 films. She was in the French version of the Children of the Lesser God film. She's also well known for appearance in Beyond Silence.
There's not a site that has her biography or filmography, other than just listing Beyond Silence. How disappointing! However, she did give us a website of a theatre company, International Visual Theatre, that she has been heavily involved with.
Hmm, am I having a fan crush on her? Well, I am a fag! *snap*
P.S.- The photo of her in the book doesn't do her justice. She is just really beautiful!
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