There is a world of difference between being deaf and…not hearing. We all know someone who is and we take it for granted that they adapt to the hearing world: they lip-read, they sign. But do we really know what it is like to grow up in a world of silence, with no notion that there are people who can hear? How does a deaf person discover that people communicate through sounds, that the shaping of lips they see produces words and communication?

In official competition

Elsa is a little girl of 9 years of age who hears and speaks, yet, her parents are deaf and do not speak. Her father is a sign language professor and her mother is a painting artist. Elsa expresses herself in French sign language and in spoken French just like her little brother of seven, Réno. At home, the children communicate in sign language even though television, internet and friends bring in the French. At school and with neighbors they use spoken language. She often has to translate for others.