Have you ever been to a poetry slam? Evanston's free REELTIME film and discussion series brings you Judy Lieff's new documentary DEAF JAM, which takes performance poetry into an entirely different direction: she follows a group of deaf teens who use American Sign Language (ASL) to perform poetry in a dramatically visual way. Among the teens is Aneta Brodski, an Israeli immigrant, who goes on to become one of the first deaf competitors in a National Poetry Slam.
In an unexpected twist, Aneta, who is an immigrant from Israel, meets Tahani, a hearing Palestinian slam poet. The two young women embark on a hearing/deaf collaboration, a performance duet that is a metaphor for the complex realities they share - generating a new form of slam poetry that speaks to both the hearing and the Deaf.
The free REELTIME film and discussion series is a program of Percolator Films (www.percolatorfilms.org), Evanston's non-profit film arts organization that also organizes the annual Talking Pictures Festival.
