L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018 www.italoamericano.org 24 L'Italo-Americano B eing deaf is like hav- ing a super power. Emilio Insolera, deaf from his birth, was so sure about this concept that he turned it into a feature film, Sign Gene. Sign Gene is, in fact, the first superhero film featuring deaf mutants with supernatural pow- ers obtained through the use of sign language, and it has been screened for a week, starting last Friday, April 13 th . The World Premiere was held in Milan on September 8th and the film was release in Italian the- aters soon after. The movie was written, pro- duced and directed by Emilio Insolera who also starred as the protagonist, Tom Clerc. "I con- sider this movie the Black Pan- ther of the deaf community," Insolera tells us during our meet- ing in Beverly Hills. Here's the plot of Sign Gene, that also starred a long list of authentic deaf actors: a secret agent Tom Clerc, descends from a multi-generational deaf family, among them Laurent Clerc, con- sidered the Father of the Deaf in America as he brought sign language to the States two centuries ago. Tom is the carrier of SGx29, a powerful mutation known as Sign Gene. A significant portion of his powers was lost during a fierce fight, some years earlier,  against his arch enemy, his own deaf brother Jux Clerc, the leader of 1.8.8.0, an evil organization dedi- cated to exterminating Sign Gene mutants. Hugh Denison, the head of Q.I.A. (QuinPar Intelligence Agency), an agency affiliated to The Pentagon, composed of hand-selected agents with Sign Gene mutation, sends Tom Clerc and his colleague Ken Wong from New York City to Osaka to investigate various intriguing crime scenes. They end up in a fight with a Japanese gang led by Tatsumi Fuwa . Tom Clerc learns that his powers are not lost forev- er. The producer and actor Emilio Insolera is a well- known activist,  deaf since birth, a polyglot who has lived in vari- ous continents, from North and South America, to Europe and Asia. He is a Fulbright-Wirth scholar, with a bachelor degree in film and linguistics from Gal- laudet University and a master in Science of Communication from University of Rome La Sapienza. Insolera is also one of the authors of the first Italian Sign Language multimedia dic- tionary.  The cast includes Humberto Insolera, Ben Bahan and it is in English, Japanese and Italian SILVIA GIUDICI Sign Gene: Emilio Insolera's own take on superheroes a flame so that you are able to light the cigarette in real life. Another example we use a lot in the movie is the gun shaped hand, which manifests the actual capability of shooting bullets. So the bullets shoot out of the hand shape that's used in sign lan- guage for the gun. What's special about the film? The presence of kodas, chil- dren from deaf families that are fluent signers. Is sign language interna- tional? No, sign language is different from country to country. As with regular languages we have have Italian, English, Spanish and so on, also in sign language the languages are different, in a dif- ferent visual way. The movie shows this variety: it is very international, with actors coming from Europe, North America and Asia, especially Japan, so many varieties of sign language are used. What is the message you want to send with this movie? Many consider deafness as a disability but we consider our- selves only as foreigners who speak a different language. We want people to get closer to our world so the message of the film is that sign language, which for us is visual, should not be just for the deaf but for everyone, and everyone should learn it, because it makes you more com- plete in an expressive and social way. It is a step towards our community. Sign Language, with English subtitles. "I am Italian, but I was born in Argentina, even though I eventually moved to Italy where I grew up," Insolera tells us. "I studied in America where there is the only university in the world for deaf people, there is also the largest bookshop in the world dedicated to deafness and that's where some inspiration came, I thought that place was a bit like in X-Men. All the stu- dents were deaf, like a sort of gathering of the deaf communi- ty. In college, there were many courses about cinema and it came out films about the deaf were always dramas. After the master I moved to Japan, where I started writing the screenplay and looking for people to make this film with." How did the movie develop from then on? It was supposed to be just a short, but then the people who worked with me were so enthusi- astic, they told me we should have turned it into a feature film. I thought it was a good opportu- nity. If it was only a short I would have given less informa- tion. When did you finish shoot- ing the movie? Last year. I started working on it eight years ago, with vari- ous breaks, for personal and financial issues. I wanted an action movie with special effects, and a deaf superhero, something never seen before in films. How was the casting's process? Are all the actors deaf? Yes, they are all deaf or born in families with deaf parents, and they have sign language as their native language. There are no agencies for deaf actors so I had to choose among my network of people in various countries. What is your character's goal? I play Tom Clerc, who comes from a family of deaf people, and he is the descent of Laurent Clerc, the creator of this super- power. My character has a genet- ic mutation that he loses after a fight with an enemy. It's this superpower, which is a genetic mutation, that we call Sign Gene. Tom's goal is therefore to protect this gene and make sure it persists because there are other people who would like to destroy it. What are these super pow- ers? They are actions that take place through the use of sign lan- guage. I can give you an exam- ple: the sign for cigarette, you make it with one hand on your mouth looking like a cigarette, and with the other hand mimick- ing a lighter when you use it to light a cigarette. With the super power, the sign actually provides LOS ANGELES ITALIAN COMMUNITY Carola e Emilio Insolera Cristina Insolera

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