Short Film From Emerging Filmmaker Hits Over 50 Thousand Views

Photo Credit: Megan Goldsman

Hand In Hand was released on Wednesday 14th September and within 24 hours had 20 thousand views on Facebook. Hand In Hand is a short film (12 minutes) that was made as a part of Someday Stories Series Six. Born out of writer and director Shelley Waddams’ (available for interview) passion to see more Deaf representation and more accessibility to Deaf stories, Hand in Hand was first drafted in lockdown 2020. Waddams’ is a CODA (child of Deaf adult) and with both parents and many of her extended family being Deaf, she has always felt a close connection with the Deaf community.

Hand In Hand follows the journey of two young Deaf girls in a hearing school in the 1970’s when Sign Language was banned.

Having been available online for a week now, Hand In Hand has over 50k views on Facebook and hundreds of comments with people sharing their stories. It has been shared over 1.5k times all over the world including in France, Germany, The Philippines, Colombia, and the United States.

These are some of the comments Hand in Hand has received:

‘I can not begin to describe to you the impact that your movie has played on both herself and our hub of 100 students…Our Deaf student was brought to tears with how different her situation is to Annette and Nicola’s story and she was overcome with emotion when we paused it to think how isolating that must have been…’

‘This brought tears to my eyes…growing up deaf was extremely challenging and isolating to ‘fit in’ the hearing world…’

‘I’ve just started teaching AUSLAN. This is going on the programme!’

‘I really appreciated your short film Hand in Hand, as I know a lot of other Deaf/HoH people will in NZ and overseas…The film struck a chord for me as a HoH/Deaf person…’

‘This is so amazing to watch. And it makes me proud to be teaching NZSL in schools in 2022!’

‘Thank you for sharing this very important story and giving these young Deaf girls the opportunity so many of our hearing students take for granted.’

‘Thank you for being another way Deaf culture and sign language is included into mainstream media’

‘That is just what happened in my early school days….I have many frustrations that we didn't have any signing in our classes as we would have picked up way more in our education’

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