gardener THIS SHORT FILM was premiered at the Edinburgh Filmhouse on 5 July during the two-day Deaf Focus Film Festival. This is the major Deaf cinema event in Scotland. The success of the first Deaf festival the previous year with Deaf and hearing audiences alike, and perhaps the influence of the recent recognition of British Sign Language as an official language, has resulted in this festival having an extended programme. The script for "gardener" came from Alan Bailey, a profoundly deaf Community Based Adult Learning literacy student and described a day in his life as a gardener. It is presented as a simple, routine experience made interesting by opportunities to observe natural forms.    His ideas were scribed from British Sign Language into written BSL English. This is the natural way Alan would write and so it was felt that this form represented his ideas closer than standard English.         Employing captions with written BSL English and working closely with Alan, Gerry Duffy, CBAL Volunteer Tutor with Signing Deaf Students and CBAL Graphics Resource Worker for Edinburgh, developed the ideas into a film.     BSL English was also used because it presented the ideas in a poetic stucture which could be used as a framework for the film. Each caption of verse was illustrated by a sequence of images.    The following line from "gardener" illustrates the differences between BSL and standard English "face lines leaf lines same" This could, with an understanding of BSL, be interpreted into standard English as "The lines on my face are like the veins on the leaf".   The film was paired with "Groei" ("Growth"), a poem in Dutch Sign Language which evoked similarities between the development of a human being and the seasons. This film made compelling use of embedded literacies and signed performance.    In "gardener", the choice of sound for a profoundly deaf person was a perplexing challenge. The most valid option at the time was to use two viewpoints: that of the film viewer and that of the gardener. The former has a lawnmower sound or natural sounds and the latter has silence.    Gerry discussed issues relating to making deaf films in "The Arts Show" (BBC Radio Scotland) on 30 June with Matt Hulse, Festival Director, and Sam Dore, a deaf actor and film-maker well-known in the field. Review written by Gerry Duffy For more information about • 'gardener', contact Gerry at 0131 558 3545 (voice), 0131 558 9355 (fax), or email gerry.duffy@educ.edin.gov.uk • the film festival, go to www.deaf-focus.org.uk • 'Groei', go to www.geelprodukt.nl/groei.html  Radio Transcript, Movie, Deaf Arts Forum