Doof Kind
A candid portrait of a close-knit family: a father and his two sons, one of whom was born deaf. Winner of the VPRO IDFA Audience Award.
Tobias was already a year old when his parents were confronted with the news that he’d been born deaf. Their automatic reaction was to moderate their expectations – a deaf child, they assumed, was surely destined for an isolated, disadvantaged life. His father Alex de Ronde looks back on the life of his now young adult son and the choices he made as a father. The childhood photos, home movies and frank conversations with Tobias and his brother Joachim reveal how he managed to turn his disadvantage to his benefit. He connects the worlds of the hearing and the deaf through his job as a teacher of sign language. By unconditionally accepting his deafness, he’s able to address several issues, like raising a deaf child and its effects on other family members, and the absurd consequences of having a disability status.