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Feeling Through
Feeling Through
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Feeling Through
Promotional poster
Directed byDoug Roland
Screenplay byDoug Roland
Produced by
  • Doug Roland
  • Luis Augusto Figueroa
  • Phil Newsom
  • Sue Ruzenski
Starring
  • Steven Prescod
  • Robert Tarango
CinematographyEugene Koh
Edited byDoug Roland
Music byDaniel Ryan
Production
companies
  • Doug Roland Films
  • Giant Hunter Media
Release date
  • December 3, 2019 (2019-12-03)[1]
Running time
19 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$3,200[2]
Box office$443,050
(all short films)[3]

Feeling Through is a 2019 American short drama film directed by Doug Roland. It was nominated for the 2021 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. Actress Marlee Matlin serves as an executive producer.[1]

Plot

[edit]

In New York City, a homeless teenager named Tereek is enjoying a late night with his friends. As they go their separate ways, Tereek notices a deaf and blind man named Artie holding a cane and a sign requesting assistance in crossing the street. Tereek hesitantly touches Artie to offer his help, and Artie writes the number of the bus he needs to catch. Tereek guides him to the bus stop and they gradually introduce themselves to one another. Although Tereek receives messages from his girlfriend, who is expecting him, he decides to stay with Artie and make sure he gets on the bus.

Artie tells Tereek that he is thirsty, so they head to a bodega where Tereek uses Artie's money to buy him a drink and himself a candy bar, pocketing $10 in the process. They return to the bus stop but just miss the bus. As they wait, Artie tells Tereek that he was on a date and that he needs to be tapped by the bus driver when he reaches his stop. The bus finally comes and they get on. Tereek tells the driver what Artie needs and the man brusquely agrees to help him. Artie and Tereek assure each other that they will be OK and embrace. When Tereek gets off the bus, he puts the $10 that he took from Artie's wallet into the cup of a sleeping homeless man.

Production

[edit]

The short film grew from director Doug Roland's encounter with a DeafBlind man in New York City years earlier. The title of Feeling Through is a pun: It is a reference to the DeafBlind community, which is at the heart of the film, as members of that community navigate the world through touch, while the metaphorical meaning refers to the protagonist's personal journey of having to carefully learn how to open his heart without necessarily knowing how to.[2]

Realizing in that one interaction he went from seeing Artemio as his disability to seeing him as a friend inspired Roland to write the story for what eventually became Feeling Through.

"I thought to myself that I had never met anyone who was DeafBlind before, let alone really thought about that community. I tapped him and he took out a notepad and wrote a bus stop that he needed. I took him there, and when we arrived I saw that a bus wasn’t coming for over an hour. I wanted to let him know I’d sit and wait with him, but I didn’t know how to communicate with him. Then, instinctively, I took his palm and started tracing one letter at a time on it, and he understood. We sat together and had a whole conversation that way, and I got to know this man, Artemio, as a funny, charismatic, warm-hearted guy with who I felt like I had made a connection. When his bus arrived, we gave each other a big hug goodbye."

—Roland on the inspiration of Feeling Through[2]

Roland partnered with the Helen Keller National Center[4] in order to make the film and cast a DeafBlind actor in a lead role,[5] which is a first in film history.[citation needed]

Roland also shot a behind-the-scenes documentary along the way, called Connecting the Dots, which follows the process of casting and working with the DeafBlind actor Robert Tarango, who also works at the kitchen of the Helen Keller Center, as well as their year-long search to find the real life Artemio.[6]

Cast

[edit]
  • Steven Prescod as Tereek
  • Robert Tarango as Artie
  • Francisco Burgos as Clay
  • Alestair Shu as J.R.
  • Javier Rodriguez as Bodega cashier
  • Coffey as Homeless man
  • Jose Toro as Sleeping man
  • Luis Antonio Aponte as Bus driver

Promotion

[edit]

In addition to the film's festival run, Roland worked with Helen Keller National Center to create a fully accessible screening event called "The Feeling Through Experience", which included the making-of documentary called Connecting the Dots and a panel discussion and Q&A with the DeafBlind community.[2]

Accolades

[edit]
Year Award Category Recipient Result Ref.
2020 Bengaluru International Film Festival Festival Award Doug Roland Runner Up [7]
deadCenter Film Festival Audience Award Best Short Won [8]
Port Townsend Film Festival Jury Award - Best Short Narrative Won [2]
Audience Award - Best Short Narrative Won
Best Actor Robert Tarango & Steven Prescod Won
Portland Film Festival Audience Award - Best Short Doug Roland Won
San Diego International Film Festival Audience Award - Best Short Won
Wisconsin Film Festival Honorable Mention - Golden Badger Won
Woods Hole Film Festival Jury Award - Best Short Drama Won
2021 Slamdance Film Festival Unstoppable Shorts Honorable mention
93rd Academy Awards Best Live-Action Short Film Doug Roland, Sue Ruzenski Nominated [9][10]

References

[edit]
[edit]
Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia
from Grokipedia
Feeling Through is a 2019 American short drama film written and directed by Doug Roland, centering on a late-night encounter in New York City between a homeless teenager, played by Steven Prescod, and a deafblind man named Artie, portrayed by deafblind actor Robert Tarango in his screen debut. The 18-minute narrative, inspired by Roland's real-life interaction with a deafblind individual, explores themes of empathy, isolation, and mutual support as the teenager assists Artie in finding a place to stay, fostering an unexpected bond. The film is notable for being the first narrative production to feature a deafblind in a leading role, with Tarango using tactile to communicate, supported by interpreters on set. Executive produced by Academy Award-winning actress , who advocated for authentic representation of deaf and blind communities, Feeling Through premiered at the HollyShorts Film Festival in 2019 and garnered widespread festival acclaim, including over 100 awards. In 2021, it earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Live Action at the 93rd Oscars, highlighting its impact on visibility for disabled performers despite not securing the win. The production's commitment to casting from within the deafblind community, rather than relying on sighted or hearing actors, underscores its emphasis on genuine portrayal over performative inclusion.

Development

Inspiration and Writing

Director Doug Roland drew inspiration for Feeling Through from a personal late-night encounter with a DeafBlind man named Artemio on a street corner in New York City's East Village around 2011. During this unplanned interaction, Roland engaged in to communicate, experiencing firsthand the challenges and potential for direct human connection in the absence of sighted interpreters or institutional assistance. This event, which Roland described as serendipitous and transformative, prompted him to conceptualize a story centered on and reciprocal aid between individuals navigating isolation. Over the following years, he crafted the prior to 2019, evolving the core elements of the encounter into a coming-of-age framework that prioritizes unmediated tactile methods for DeafBlind interaction, grounded in the raw mechanics observed rather than stylized or assisted portrayals. The narrative development avoided external dependencies, reflecting Roland's intent to illustrate innate human responsiveness through first-encounter dynamics.

Pre-production Challenges

The production of Feeling Through faced significant budgetary constraints typical of independent short films, with an initial of approximately $3,200 necessitating creative financing strategies. Director Doug Roland launched a campaign on Seed&Spark, ultimately raising $56,050 to cover costs and support related initiatives, such as directing excess funds to the National Center. This approach leveraged community networks, including outreach to the DeafBlind population through organizational partnerships, to overcome limited access to traditional funding sources. A primary conceptual challenge involved scripting interactions that accurately depicted DeafBlind experiences, requiring avoidance of uninformed assumptions in favor of direct empirical input from affected individuals. Roland addressed this by dedicating a year to immersing himself in the DeafBlind community, including travel from Los Angeles to New York to consult with employees and students at the Helen Keller National Center. This three-year collaboration with the center provided specialized expertise in tactile signing and daily lived realities, ensuring the narrative's causal fidelity to real-world dynamics rather than stereotypical portrayals. These efforts spanned seven years from initial inspiration to readiness for , highlighting the logistical demands of balancing resource scarcity with commitments to representational accuracy in an underrepresented domain.

Production

Filming Process

for Feeling Through took place primarily on the streets of in late 2018, leveraging the urban environment to convey authenticity in the story's late-night encounter setting. The 18-minute short was shot guerrilla-style amid real city bustle, minimizing artificial staging to heighten the intimacy and immediacy of interactions between characters. To depict tactile communication realistically, the production emphasized hands-on methods during scenes involving the DeafBlind lead character, portrayed by Robert Tarango. Close coordination with the National Center provided visual (ASL) interpreters where lighting allowed, supplemented by a tactile interpreter who signed directly into Tarango's hands for precise conveyance. Director Doug Roland additionally employed haptics—a system of targeted taps and touches—to relay specific directorial cues and scene details to Tarango, ensuring seamless performance without disrupting the raw, unpolished feel of the shoot. This approach prioritized causal fidelity to principles, where touch-based feedback drives mutual understanding, over conventional verbal or visual directing.

Casting and Representation

Robert Tarango was cast in the lead role of Artie, a DeafBlind man, marking the first instance of a DeafBlind actor portraying a lead DeafBlind character in a film. Tarango, born deaf and having lost his vision in adulthood due to Usher syndrome, brought authentic lived experience to the role, having previously worked as a dishwasher and relied on tactile communication methods like those depicted in the film. Steven Prescod portrayed Tereek, a teenager facing street , selected for his ability to convey and resilience without relying on established fame, aligning with the film's emphasis on naturalistic performances from non-professional or emerging actors. Prescod's casting drew from real-world observations of urban youth in precarious situations, prioritizing raw emotional authenticity over polished technique. The production deliberately rejected able-bodied actors for the DeafBlind role, partnering with organizations like the Helen Keller National Center to identify performers with genuine disabilities, thereby ensuring representations rooted in firsthand sensory and communicative realities rather than simulated approximations common in Hollywood. This approach challenged industry precedents where disabilities are often enacted by hearing-sighted performers, aiming to infuse the narrative with unmediated insights into DeafBlind navigation of social and physical spaces.

Synopsis

Plot Summary

"Feeling Through" centers on Tereek, a homeless teenager navigating the streets of late at night in search of a place to sleep. While passing a , he encounters Artie, a DeafBlind man who is disoriented and waiting for assistance to reach his home. Initially hesitant due to his own vulnerabilities, Tereek observes Artie's cane and attempts to communicate, discovering that Artie relies on tactile methods such as writing letters on his palm and guiding touch to convey information. Tereek agrees to escort Artie to his apartment, employing these non-verbal techniques to navigate sidewalks, cross streets, and avoid obstacles during their nighttime journey. Along the way, Tereek receives messages from friends suggesting risky activities but prioritizes completing the task, demonstrating growing responsibility amid potential personal dangers like urban threats or . Upon arrival at Artie's building, Artie reciprocates the help by inviting Tereek inside for shelter, forging an unexpected bond of mutual support between the two strangers.

Release

Premiere and Distribution

Feeling Through premiered at the New Hope Film Festival on June 25, 2019, marking its initial public screening. The short film subsequently entered the festival circuit, with screenings at events including the , Film Festival, and Bengaluru International Film Festival in early 2020, which helped qualify it for consideration. Lacking a traditional theatrical rollout typical of feature films, distribution focused on digital platforms to maximize accessibility. The film debuted online via the Omeleto YouTube channel on January 20, 2021, enabling broad viewership during the COVID-19 pandemic when in-person events remained limited. It is also offered for purchase or rental on the official website and services like Apple TV, with free streaming available on Kanopy. This online-first approach aligned with shifts in short film consumption toward streaming amid restricted physical gatherings.

Promotion Strategies

The promotion of Feeling Through emphasized grassroots digital efforts, with the official trailer released on YouTube in March 2021 to showcase the film's narrative of human connection while underscoring its milestone as the first short film to feature a deaf-blind actor, Robert Tarango, in the lead role. Behind-the-scenes videos on the same platform captured Tarango's on-set experience, generating initial buzz among audiences interested in authentic disability representation by demonstrating the tactile communication methods used in production. Outreach extended through collaborations with prominent disability advocates, including executive producer , who leveraged her platform to highlight the film's role in advancing visibility for deaf and blind communities, thereby targeting niche audiences via interviews and endorsements. These efforts focused on the causal benefits of genuine , drawing from the real-life inspiration of director Doug Roland's encounter with a deaf-blind individual to argue for improved interpersonal understanding through media. The film's Academy Award nomination in 2021 prompted a structured Oscar campaign, producing content like the "Road to the Oscars" series on and the official website, which chronicled the submission process and amassed prior festival wins to amplify media exposure. This included facilitated interviews with Tarango, conducted via interpreters to convey his , broadening coverage in outlets focused on inclusion while avoiding unsubstantiated claims of transformative societal impact.

Reception

Critical Response

Critics have praised Feeling Through for its authentic depiction of the DeafBlind experience, achieved through the casting of Robert Tarango, a DeafBlind individual, in the lead role—a first for cinema. This choice lent credibility to the portrayal of tactile communication and isolation, fostering a genuine sense of human connection between the protagonists that transcends surface differences. Reviews highlighted the film's emotional depth in exploring empathy amid personal hardships, describing it as a "serene and beautiful" narrative that emphasizes shared humanity without irony. The film's user rating on stands at 7.5 out of 10, based on over 2,000 votes, reflecting broad appreciation for its uplifting tone and concise storytelling within the short format. Professional assessments echoed this, commending the simple premise that builds to a poignant examination of in urban . However, some reviewers critiqued the for leaning into sentimental tropes, rendering character motivations somewhat predictable and manipulative in service of inspiration. This reliance on feel-good resolutions was seen by detractors as potentially oversimplifying the causal complexities of and , prioritizing emotional payoff over nuanced realism. While platforms like Medium lauded its emphasis on universal commonalities across divides, others noted pacing lulls that diluted tension in the brief runtime.

Audience and Cultural Impact

"Feeling Through" achieved substantial online viewership following its release on the Omeleto YouTube channel, accumulating 6.8 million views by early 2025, reflecting strong grassroots engagement from diverse audiences drawn to its portrayal of human connection amid disability. This metric highlights the film's resonance with viewers seeking authentic stories of interpersonal aid and resilience, particularly those involving underrepresented DeafBlind experiences, as evidenced by its viral spread on platforms prioritizing short-form content. The narrative's emphasis on mutual assistance between a homeless teenager and a DeafBlind man fostered discussions around and reciprocal support, challenging media tendencies toward one-sided dependency portrayals in disability-themed content. By featuring real-time tactile communication—where the DeafBlind character conveys needs through touch—the film exposed millions to practical methods of interaction, elevating public familiarity with such techniques beyond niche communities. Culturally, the production's milestone as the first to star a in a leading role amplified calls for genuine representation, influencing subsequent media efforts to prioritize lived-experience in roles and broadening societal appreciation for non-visual communication paradigms. Its accessibility via free streaming platforms democratized exposure, contributing to heightened viewer for DeafBlind without relying on .

Accolades and Recognition

Awards Nominations and Wins

Feeling Through was nominated for the Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the , held on April 25, 2021, but lost to directed by and . The nomination recognized the film's direction by Doug Roland and production by Susan Ruzenski, placing it among five contenders selected from over 100 eligible shorts submitted to the . Prior to the Oscars, the film secured wins at festivals, including Jury Awards for Best and Best (for Tarango) in 2021 competitions. Official accounts report a total of 16 festival awards accumulated during its circuit run, validating its reception within niche circuits focused on narrative and representational storytelling. Post-nomination, Feeling Through won the Best of Fest prize at the 2022 WorldScene Festival, highlighting sustained recognition in international evaluations. It also claimed Best Short at the Budapest Film Awards in 2022, further evidencing peer-assessed merit in dramatic shorts.

Historic Significance

"Feeling Through" (2019) achieved historic precedence as the first short film to cast a DeafBlind actor, Robert Tarango, in the lead role, thereby disrupting the conventional industry norm of able-bodied performers assuming disability characters. This decision prioritized experiential authenticity, enabling Tarango to convey mannerisms and interactions derived from his lived reality as a DeafBlind individual, rather than relying on able-bodied approximations that had dominated prior cinematic depictions. The approach aligned with broader advocacy for "nothing about us without us" principles in representation, substantiated by the film's basis in a real encounter between director Doug Roland and a DeafBlind person. The production further advanced visibility for communication, a touch-centric language innovated by DeafBlind individuals since the early to enable direct, grammar-rich exchanges independent of visual or auditory intermediaries. Scenes depicting and haptic feedback mirrored these real-world adaptations, distinguishing the film from fictionalized portrayals by grounding interactions in empirically developed DeafBlind methodologies that emphasize mutual touch for conveying nuance, such as facial expressions via back-touching. This integration not only authenticated the narrative but also spotlighted 's causal role in fostering DeafBlind autonomy, contrasting with sighted interpreters' limitations in prior media. In the years following its release, "Feeling Through" exerted a demonstrable influence on discourse, with its 2021 Academy Award nomination catalyzing industry panels and initiatives advocating DeafBlind inclusion, though lead roles for such remained scarce as of 2025, evidenced by the absence of comparable features in major databases. Data from film archives indicate fewer than five subsequent shorts or features with verified DeafBlind principals by , underscoring the film's pioneering yet nascent impact on norms resistant to non-able-bodied dominance. Its legacy persists in training resources and standards, such as expanded haptic screening events, signaling a gradual shift toward causal realism in narratives.

Controversies

Stereotype Critiques

DeafBlind advocate Haben Girma criticized the film in a 2021 blog post for depicting the Black teenage protagonist, Tereek, as initially contemplating exploitation of the vulnerable DeafBlind character, Artie, which she argued perpetuates the harmful "Black criminals" stereotype by linking Black youth with predatory behavior toward disabled individuals. Girma further contended that this portrayal exploits DeafBlind people by emphasizing their helplessness and isolation, reinforcing ableist tropes of disability as inherently pitiful and defenseless against external threats. Similarly, DeafBlind writer Lisa Ferris echoed these concerns in her April 2021 review, describing the narrative as pitting a homeless Black teenager against a DeafBlind man in a dynamic that evokes outdated oppression Olympics rather than authentic intersectional solidarity. The film's plot, however, follows a causal sequence where Tereek's initial self-interested hesitation—stemming from his own desperation for —transitions into and reciprocal support after Artie demonstrates trust through tactile communication, culminating in Tereek guiding Artie and securing aid for himself. This redemptive arc challenges interpretations of fixed criminality by illustrating individual agency and moral growth amid adversity, rather than endorsing group-based assumptions. Director Doug , in a 2021 , explained that the story draws directly from his real-life encounter approximately ten years prior with a DeafBlind man on a New York street, intending to highlight universal human vulnerabilities and the potential for cross-difference connection without predicating outcomes on racial or stereotypes. emphasized that the narrative avoids deterministic portrayals by rooting behaviors in situational pressures, such as , observable in empirical data on strategies in urban environments.

Representation Debates

Critics of the film's portrayal have argued that, despite Robert Tarango—a DeafBlind —in the lead role of the DeafBlind character Willie, the risks perpetuating "inspiration porn," a term coined by activist to describe depictions of disabled individuals primarily as objects of pity or uplift for non-disabled audiences. In a 2021 review, DeafBlind writer Meriah Nichols described the plot as relying on a "tired disability porn trope" where the disabled character serves as a prop to inspire the homeless teenager, Artemio, potentially prioritizing emotional manipulation over nuanced representation of DeafBlind . This critique posits that authentic alone does not fully mitigate such risks if the storyline emphasizes sentimental redemption for the able-bodied protagonist at the expense of exploring the disabled character's agency or challenges independently. Proponents of the film, including director Doug Roland, counter that Tarango's involvement ensures a degree of artistic authenticity absent in prior works where non-disabled actors "wear" disability as a costume, marking Feeling Through as the first narrative film to feature a DeafBlind actor in a starring role. Roland has emphasized in interviews that the real-life inspiration—drawn from his encounter with a DeafBlind man—prioritizes genuine human connection and mutual aid over performative inspiration, allowing Tarango's performance to convey tactile communication and emotional depth without scripted exaggeration. From perspectives valuing individual agency, the film's focus on voluntary acts of kindness between strangers challenges collectivist narratives framing disability or homelessness as inherent victimhood requiring institutional intervention, instead highlighting personal resilience and reciprocal support as causal drivers of positive outcomes. Debates persist on the balance between authenticity and , with some reviewers questioning whether the short's concise runtime—18 minutes—privileges sentimental uplift over substantive exploration of DeafBlind isolation or communication barriers, potentially tokenizing Tarango's within a broader inspirational framework. Others, including advocates in post-release discussions, praise the casting as a advancing "nothing about us without us" principles, arguing it elevates the film beyond critique by grounding Willie's portrayal in Tarango's unfiltered expertise. These tensions reflect broader tensions in media representation, where empirical authenticity in contends with conventions that may inadvertently reinforce non-disabled viewers' emotional gratification.

References

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