After this year’s Academy Awards, you might think that everything’s been done. A woman finally won best director, the lady from Speed won a best actress nod and the phrase “uber bingo” was used in an acceptance speech. That’s why we’re excited about the upcoming documentary “See What I’m Saying,” which breaks new ground for the deaf community. Directed and produced by filmmaker Hilari Scarl, the film not only follows four deaf/hard of hearing performers–a subset of the entertainment community that mainstream audiences know little about–but every print of the film is open captioned making it available to all audiences, including those who don’t know sign language. Unlike most films, where deaf audiences are limited to only a handful of options if they want to catch a captioned screening, all showings of SWIS will be accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing.

This heartfelt documentary follows four entertainers in the deaf community as they attempt to cross over to mainstream audiences during a single year: CJ Jones, an internationally celebrated comic in the deaf world, but virtually unknown to hearing audiences fights to cross over to the mainstream by producing the first international sign language theatre festival in Los Angeles; Bob Hiltermann, a drummer in the world’s only deaf rock band, Beethoven’s Nightmare, produces the largest show in the band’s 30 year history;  Robert DeMayo, a brilliant actor who teaches at Juilliard, struggles to survive when he becomes homeless; and TL Forsberg, a hard-of-hearing singer finds herself caught between the hearing and deaf communities when she attracts a major producer to record her first CD “Not Deaf Enough.”