Historic all-sign-language movie 'Jesus: A Deaf Missions Film' comes to theaters
A still from Jesus: A Deaf Missions Film. (Photo courtesy of Deaf Missions)
Joseph Josselyn remembers being fascinated by the 1977 drama Jesus of Nazareth—but as a Deaf child, he had to rely on closed captions to catch the dialogue.
“I had this thought: I wonder what it would be like if this film was completely in sign language,” Josselyn said in a recent interview over Zoom facilitated by an American Sign Language interpreter.
His career since could arguably be described as a journey to finding out. On June 20, a movie telling the story of Jesus entirely in American Sign Language will become the first all-ASL feature film to debut in theaters, according to Josselyn, the film’s producer.
