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‘OUR HANDS ARE LOUD’: DOCUMENTARY CREATES A NEW VISUAL LANGUAGE
TO TELL A TRAILBLAZER’S STORY  
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Matt Minton
July 8, 2025
The Progressive
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_ Not Alone Anymore paints an emotional portrait of Matlin’s acting
career and personal life, tracing a line from Matlin’s historic 1987
Oscar win for Children of a Lesser God to 2022’s CODA, which
featured a predominantly deaf cast. _

Shoshannah Stern and Marlee Matlin collaborate during new documentary
'Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore', (Credit: Kino Lober Team).

 

For a long time, Oscar-winning actress Marlee Matlin has been waiting
for her story to be told by someone within the Deaf community. Her
wish was granted with this year’s Sundance premiere of _Marlee
Matlin: Not Alone Anymore_
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a documentary directed by Shoshannah Stern, who is also deaf.

When Matlin was first approached by American Masters, a PBS television
series that has produced [[link removed]]
films about iconic artists and cultural figures such as Charlie
Chaplin and Billie Holiday, the network had already chosen a director
from outside the Deaf community. But Matlin wanted a deaf female
director to tell her life story, and she already had someone in mind:
Stern, an actress and writer who Matlin met while guest starring
together on _The Division_ in 2003.

“ knowing that Shoshannah hadn’t directed before, I didn’t think
she would have a problem, because all the years that I’ve had a
chance to observe her, quietly behind the scenes, I knew that she had
a directorial spirit within her,” Matlin signs to _The Progressive
_through her interpreter, Jack Jason. “I’m glad that American
Masters and PBS agreed to my suggestion because, in all honesty, I
don’t think that we would have done this the right way without
her.”

_Not Alone Anymore_ paints an emotional portrait of Matlin’s acting
career and personal life, tracing a line from Matlin’s historic 1987
Oscar win [[link removed]] for _Children
of a Lesser God_ to 2022’s _CODA_, which featured a predominantly
deaf cast and received the Academy Award for Best Picture. Troy Kotsur
[[link removed]],
who was awarded Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his work in
_CODA_, was the first deaf actor to receive an Academy Award since
Matlin’s win
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thirty-five years prior.  In those intervening years, Matlin faced
scrutiny
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from some deaf people for speaking while presenting at the 1988
Academy Awards, and eventually opened up about being abused by William
Hurt
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on the set of _Children of a Lesser God_. 

_The Progressive _spoke with Matlin and Stern, who signed through her
interpreter, Karri Aiken, about developing a new visual language to
authentically tell Matlin’s story, the evolution of conversations
surrounding closed captioning in film, and how Matlin has navigated
isolation within the Deaf community. This interview has been edited
for length and clarity.

Q: IT WAS REALLY INTERESTING THAT THE FILM ITSELF IS LARGELY SILENT
AND DOESN’T USE A LOT OF INTERPRETERS. SHOSHANNAH, HOW DID YOU
APPROACH THE VISUAL STYLE WITH INCLUSIVITY IN MIND? AND HOW DID YOU
COLLABORATE WITH MARLEE TO BRING THAT TO LIFE?

SHOSHANNAH STERN: I think Marlee’s been tired of having her story be
told by someone who lives outside of her experience. I’ve been able
to experience a lot of what she’s also experienced, including having
sit-down interviews with someone who lives outside my experience.
I’ve always been having to think, “OK, where is the interpreter
going to sit?” I have to monitor the interpreter, make sure
they’re picking the right words, and say, “Wait, I meant another
word.” So then I have to switch over to English, even though
American Sign Language (ASL) and English are very different, and some
things in ASL have no translation. So in my mind, I’m already having
to translate for myself before I even say it. All of that is the
invisible weight that deaf people carry—that invisible load, which
is really exhausting.

I didn’t realize until I said yes to working on this project that
documentaries are sound-based, because for so long they’ve been made
by hearing people about hearing people for hearing audiences. I had
always accepted that as a deaf person, and then realized, “Wow, I
have this really exciting opportunity to push form and documentary as
much as I possibly can.” 

I knew I didn’t want voiceover. I wanted Marlee to feel comfortable
expressing herself as she is, and then we would worry about
translation later. I knew that captions were going to be a big part of
the movie because they’re a big part of her story. What better way
to show how important captions are than to make sure that captions
become another important layer of the story? That’s just how Marlee
and I have always had to watch movies—around a tall person’s head.
I wanted to really make sure that this could be an immersive sensory
experience for everyone, to be able to see the world differently. And
I think that’s why people watch movies in general.

MARLEE MATLIN: It’s interesting that some folks complain about
captions. They’ll say it’s very distracting, or, “Why do I want
to read a movie while I’m watching a movie? Why do I want to read
ahead of what they’re saying?” And I get it, legitimately. But
when sound is something that goes off, because they’re taking sound
for granted, they realize captions are very important. In this
particular scenario, we want people to get a taste of what we
experience in life.

STERN: And sign language is so beautiful. It’s not a silent
language—it’s not quiet at all.

MATLIN: At all!

STERN: So when we have voiceover, I feel like we’re missing the
sounds that sign language has within its language. I grew up in a deaf
family, I went to deaf parties, and they’re _so_ loud. Marlee
herself says in the film, “It’s not silent in here!”

MATLIN: Our hands are loud. Our hands convey loudness.

Q: MARLEE, YOU’VE BEEN OUTSPOKEN ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF CAPTIONS
FROM THE BEGINNING OF YOUR CAREER. A FEW YEARS AGO, YOU WALKED OUT
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OF A SUNDANCE SCREENING OF _MAGAZINE DREAMS_ THAT DIDN’T PROVIDE
CAPTIONS. THIS DOCUMENTARY PREMIERED AT SUNDANCE EARLIER THIS YEAR, SO
I’M CURIOUS IF FILM ORGANIZATIONS AND FESTIVALS HAVE BECOME MORE
OPEN TO FEEDBACK? OR DO YOU THINK THERE’S STILL A WAY TO GO TOWARD
INCLUSIVITY?

MATLIN: It was my first experience being a juror
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ready to watch, and when I saw the captioning wasn’t working, my
heart sank and I thought to myself, “What am I supposed to do?
Should I say time out to everyone, stop the movie? Or just kind of go
with the flow?” But as it turned out, the two jurors beside me beat
me to the punch because they saw into my device, grabbed me out, and
said, “We’re going.” They understood where I was coming from and
knew it wasn’t right for me to be able to sit there and not have
captions, because I couldn’t do my job. 

Yes, it did cause some confusion and chaos with people at the film
festival; they were very, very apologetic. At the same time, it was a
matter of producers and directors who subsequently had other films not
projected with open captions. A lot of them had captions in their
digital presentations, but they didn’t want to do it because they
felt it would somehow ruin the viewing experience. I am very proud to
say that as a governor of the Motion Picture Academy, we have worked
to get the rules stated in the submission of films for Oscar
consideration, that they have to be captioned. Otherwise, the Academy
will not take the film for consideration. It would be great if film
festivals could follow the same rule.

STERN: Captions are a really exciting opportunity. You can make your
captions exactly what you want them to be, and they can elevate your
story. There’s so much potential for it to become this really
exciting other way to show what your film is and what it’s about . .
. . It can move your story forward in so many different ways. You can
use words in creative ways. I just wish that other people saw that as
an opportunity as well and not an obstacle.

Q: WHEN TALKING ABOUT INCLUSIVITY, WE’RE OFTEN FOCUSED ON THE
FUTURE. BUT IN THIS FILM, YOU ALSO BRING UP THE IMPORTANCE OF MAKING
OLDER FILMS MORE ACCESSIBLE. MARLEE, YOU HAD THAT EXPERIENCE WITH _THE
WIZARD OF OZ _WHEN YOU FINALLY WERE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE
CHARACTERS WERE SAYING. WHY WAS THAT IMPORTANT TO INCLUDE?

MATLIN: Films aren’t just for hearing people. Whether you’re
talking about new or old films, we’re talking about all people as it
should be. We enjoy films just as much as anybody else, so why should
it be that you deprive us of the opportunity to watch a film or TV
show, old or new? I’ll never forget that moment where I first saw
_The Wizard of Oz_ with captions and learned the characters had names.
I mean, I saw it hundreds of times without captions, but now I
understood because of what the captions did and said.

When films started to slowly add captions on VHS, I would go to
Blockbuster and collect seven or eight films, and I would watch them
all day because they had captions. Finally, it was time for me to
catch up and get involved and join the entertainment world. I was
waiting for that invitation for the longest time.

Q: MARLEE, YOU’VE BEEN VERY OPEN ABOUT HOW YOU FELT EXCLUDED FROM
THE DEAF COMMUNITY AFTER YOU PRESENTED BEST ACTOR IN 1988 AND SPOKE
OUT LOUD [[link removed]] FOR THE SECOND
HALF OF YOUR SPEECH AFTER INITIALLY SIGNING. HOW HAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP
TO THE DEAF COMMUNITY CHANGED OVER THE YEARS UP UNTIL THE _CODA_ WIN?
DO YOU STILL STRUGGLE WITH THAT ISOLATION?

MATLIN: That’s an interesting question because no one asked that
kind of question before the documentary, and I appreciate that. As a
result of growing older, now as a mother of four and grandmother of
one, I’ve learned to navigate through people’s reactions. A great
number of people in the Deaf community still have that issue with
holding a grudge, if you want to put it that way, and I think
they’ll never forget what I did. But when they watch the
documentary, they’ll understand, and I hope those attitudes from a
certain portion of the Deaf community will change, that whatever anger
and resentment they carried for me over the years was not justified.

But I can’t necessarily blame them because they were taught by the
system to feel this way toward me, so I need to give them the benefit
of the doubt. I’ve had some people approach me after seeing the film
and apologize. And I just smile, give them a hug, because the
documentary gave them the answer they were looking for.

STERN: The media really did shift to make sure that Marlee became an
outlet for other feelings that deaf people had, and for so long about
being excluded. A lot of that anger was repressed, and then it got
shifted into this outlet, which was Marlee, and then taken out on
her. 

It’s so interesting because a lot of deaf people have come up to
talk to me after this film and it’s a different conversation. I’ve
seen a lot of people go up to Marlee, apologize to her, and when
people come up to me, they said, “That’s what happened?” They
just remembered it completely differently, thinking Marlee spoke the
whole time during the Oscars. No, she did sign! She didn’t use her
voice the first half of it, and then she only voiced the nominee
names, and deaf people say, “We got mad because of that?” And
that’s it. 

It really was such a simple thing and they couldn’t believe they got
so mad about it, but it was the way the media really handed out the
megaphone saying, “You guys, she spoke! Look how horrible she
was,” rather than talking about why it happened and the decision she
made. All the questions she had gotten from reporters, asking,
“Marlee, do you think you’ll ever work again as a deaf person?”
The media was just able to move on without any accountability at all.
Marlee had to take all of the accountability for that.

Q: NOW THAT THE FILM IS PLAYING IN THEATERS, IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE
YOU WANT TO ADD? 

STERN: I hope [the film] shows that who tells stories is important.
Even if you haven’t seen your experience represented before, you can
still push things. You can. You don’t have to feel limited by how
people have seen things so far.

_Matt Minton is a freelance journalist with bylines in Variety, The
Progressive, Us Weekly, and Next Best Picture. They cover
international films, awards season, and LGBTQ+ trends in media._

_Since 1909, The Progressive has aimed to amplify voices of dissent
and those under-represented in the mainstream, with a goal of
championing grassroots progressive politics. Our bedrock values are
nonviolence and freedom of speech. Based in Madison, Wisconsin, we
publish on national politics, culture, and events including U.S.
foreign policy; we also focus on issues of particular importance to
the heartland. Two flagship projects of The
Progressive include Public School Shakedown
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to resist the privatization of public education, and The Progressive
Media Project [[link removed]], aiming to diversify our
nation’s op-ed pages. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. _

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* deaf community
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* sign language
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* movie industry
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