Boy meets girl. Circumstances push them together and pull them apart. But in the end, their experiences make them better people and makes them realize that perhaps, they are the best thing that happened to each others lives.

It sounds like a typical love story. But in Mike Sandejas’ new film, “Dinig Sana Kita”, an entry in this year’s Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival, this story is complicated and enriched by the fact that half of this equation is a deaf person.

“Dinig Sana Kita” tells the story of Niña, a troubled rocker chick who abuses her hearing and lives a tumultuous family life, and Kiko, an orphaned deaf boy who likes to dance.

When Kiko and Niña end up attending a mixed camp for deaf and hearing people, the two get over their preconceived notions about each other and start realizing that they have more things in common than they would like to think.

When Kiko needs a should to cry on, it is Niña whom he turns to. And when Niña’s problematic home life reaches a breaking point, Kiko is literally the only one who best understands what she is going through.

WHO COULD REALLY HEAR?

Director Mike Sandejas says the inspiration for the film comes from two places: from his own home life, and from the experiences of a friend who actually runs a mixed camp of hearing and deaf kids.

“I had a friend who runs a camp for real that mixes deaf and hearing kids. He told me about the stories. Another part of it is my own experiences as a son and as a father. You know how families are, sometimes, there are problems,” he says.

Just like the character of Niña, Sandejas underwent an epiphany while immersing himself in the deaf community as part of his research for the movie.

“I found out that they are much happier than some of us who can hear. It begs the question, who’s the real deaf person, the one who is deaf or the one who doesn’t listen,” Sandejas says. “And within families there are always cases where someone isn’t listening. It became my inspiration for the movie, and I just started writing my thoughts and my feelings and the movie came to be.”

While his research may have erased any preconceived notions he may have had about deaf people, Sandejas also admits that filming a movie with deaf people -- a first time experience for him -- would prove to have its own unique problems, especially when it came to communicating.

“It was hard at first. There was just a difference when it came to context. Kunwari yung dialogue, sinulat mo, iba na kapag ginawa mo sa Filipino sign language, minsan contextually hindi nagma-match. I discovered that while I was shooting. Tumitigil kami to explain kung ano talaga yung gusto kong sabihin nila para tama yung context. I had deaf experts and translators.Yung una nahihirapan kami pero once we got the process right naging madali na. Kung malabo na, labasan na lang ng cellphone yan,” Sandejas recalls.

JUST LIKE YOU AND ME

Finding the right guy to play the lead would also prove difficult for Sandejas, who had to find a deaf person who could dance and act as well.

“I was lucky to have found Rome Mallari, because he fit the bill perfectly.

Otherwise, saan ako kukuha ng ganito? Deaf na sumasayaw na umaarte. Somebody recommended him and suddenly I knew that this is the guy I need. I got him prepared, I had him do a workshop with Laurice Guillen,” he says of his male lead.

One thing that makes the movie become more than just another typical love story is how it portrays deaf people. If it were not for the fact that they sign, the deaf characters in the movie are hardly distinguishable from the hearing ones. As characters, they are just like anybody else – as capable of bitchiness as they are of good deeds.

This was something that Sandejas learned during the year and a half he spent researching and making the film.

“One thing I learned about them is that they’re very normal. They do things like dance, they like music, and none of us realize that they can appreciate it. Music belongs to everybody. It may be different for them, but music is for everyone. They try their best to appreciate the things that people don’t think they can,” he says.

As such, Sandejas also made a conscious decision to make his film accessible not just to hearing people, but to the deaf people that inspired the movie in the first place.

“If they watch the movie, they can appreciate the movie as well, but what if there were no subtitles? If I had to make the movie, I had to subtitle both the spoken and sign dialogue so I can have an audience of both deaf and hearing. I really wanted it to be a deaf-friendly movie so they can consider it as a movie made for them,” he says.

The film earned a lot of positive buzz during its run in the Cinemalaya Film Festival (The Festival’s awarding ceremonies have not been held as of this writing), with screenings selling out. But beyond the film’s success, Sandejas says that he hopes it changes things not just for deaf people, but for hearing ones as well.

“Maybe from here on, the deaf people can make their own movies, open the doors for deaf artists. Maybe they will surprise us with their own movies,” he says. “What I’d like to see is a deaf movie made by a deaf director. That would be interesting.”

SHOUT OUT TO SpEd TEACHERS

The film also has a subplot that shows a SpEd teacher opting to head abroad for greener pastures, and Sandejas hopes that this portrayal helps stem the exile of the country’s excellent SpEd teachers to other countries.

“When you ask SpEd students why they are taking SpEd, it’s because they want to go abroad. But you also have to understand that these people have to think of themselves. They don’t get high salaries,” he says. “Ang naiiwan dito yung matatanda na. The young ones are always leaving. This is like a call to help out SpEd teachers so that they’ll stay. That’s perhaps the main reason why I created that character.”

Their exile, he says has forced deaf people to fend for themselves.

“The deaf can do anything except hear, but they have to be educated first. Ang pinaka-fear nila really is mawala lahat ng teacher. Ang ginagawa nila is sila yung nagiging teacher,” he explains. “I met a lot of deaf students in Baguio na they go to class with an interpreter, so they can understand the teacher. Nag-BS Education sila, ngayon teacher na sila ng deaf. Nobody can help them except themselves, because everybody is leaving.”

As for the hearing, Sandejas hopes that “Dinig Sana Kita” changes how they look at the deaf.
“I didn’t want to hard sell anything and tell people about what problems they go through. Actually, ang pinakita ko sa movie yung problema natin, hindi kanila. I don’t think people expected that,” he says. “I want the misconceptions about the deaf to be erased. Sometimes being in a world of silence can benefit some of us hearing people who live in a world of noise.”