By Jordan Crucchiola

On the morning of January 28, a crucial piece of history was resurfaced in the Premieres section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Together with his co-director, the Oscar-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, director Nyle DiMarco presents their documentary, Deaf President Now!, which tells the thrilling true story of one week in 1988 that changed the Deaf community forever — and almost no one seems to know about it. 

As senior programmer Basil Tsiokos told the Eccles Theater audience, “I am so excited you are the very first audience in the world to see this film, here at Sundance. This rousing film brings us back to 1988, and to the campus of Gallaudet University, to tell a timely story about the power of collective action to demand revolutionary, paradigm-shifting change.”

When DiMarco took the stage, he echoed that sentiment via an American Sign Language interpreter. “Deaf President Now! is this incredible civil rights movement that almost nobody in America, much less the world, really knows about,” explains the filmmaker, who is also a fourth-generation Deaf advocate. “This was a civil rights movement that was a part of so many others that we learned when we were in high school, but because it’s Deaf history it’s been written out of textbooks. So, I knew that it was a very, very important story to tell. We want to thank the Sundance Film Festival and Basil, who invited us here to make this moment possible. We are so incredibly grateful to all of the programmers and volunteers who make this festival what it is.”

Gallaudet University was founded in 1864, and is still the only higher education institution in the entire world specifically designed to accommodate Deaf and hard of hearing students. In 1988, the Board of Trustees was tasked with selecting a new president for the school, with two Deaf finalists in the running along with one hearing person. In the entire history of Gallaudet, it had never had a Deaf person actually running the school, and many students were certain this would finally be the year of change, that they would at last be led by one of their own. The Board disagreed and selected the lone hearing candidate, which set off a firestorm of protest on and around campus.  

The title Deaf President Now! comes from the rallying cry adopted by students who demanded the Board rescind its decision and pick one of the two candidates who were actually part of the Deaf community. A revolt that started on campus became a march to a hotel, where several of the Trustees were convened inside, having a dinner. When the students’ demands were met with a dismissal, they returned to campus, locked it down, and refused to let anyone in until the Board conceded to their demands. “The Gallaudet four” were tapped to lead the movement — students Tim Rarus, Bridgetta Bourne, Greg Hlibok, and Jerry Covell — and through their oral histories, viewers are given an incredible tick-tock of events that escalated the campus protest into a nationwide sensation.

“We must thank the four subjects of this film for their incredible courage and their vulnerability and their strength to share their own incredible stories. And I would like to thank my Deaf family and my community for preserving this story, passing it down hand to hand, generation to generation, so that this history is not forgotten,” says DiMarco. 

Once you’ve watched Deaf President Now!, it’s hard to believe this story has slipped between the cracks of history. Guggenheim was even living in Washington D.C. at the time of the protest — which was covered by Ted Koppel and major broadcast news stations — but the director had no idea it even happened. It’s cinematic enough to have been turned into a narrative film or miniseries by now, and when DiMarco had first set out to bring the events to screen, he was developing it as a narrative feature film. But DiMarco realized that fiction based on reality would not sufficiently convey the gravity of the story. When he eventually got connected with Guggenheim, the lauded veteran filmmaker agreed. “This has to be a documentary,” he told DiMarco. “This is absolutely a documentary.”

And so the process began. A key mandate for DiMarco, in alignment with the message of the film, was that the history be told from a Deaf perspective. “I talked to Nyle, [and] he said that ‘for too long hearing people have told our story,’” recalls Guggenheim. “So I had to totally switch my point of view. How can I be in service of their story and let Nyle and these four incredible people tell this story?” The co-directors wanted both Deaf and hearing audiences to be “viscerally in the moment from the Deaf perspective,” Guggenheim says in the post-show Q&A. 

Each of the Gallaudet four is in attendance at the screening, and through dedicated ASL interpreters, each calls passionately for this moment to be a continuation of their uprising’s galvanizing spirit, not a tidy conclusion to it. “We suffer language deprivation. We suffer serious issues in the community. But the important thing is a Deaf child now can see this film and feel proud of who they are, proud of their identity,” says Hlibock. “This moment has really made it so that anything they dream of is possible, and I am so grateful to the people who made this happen.” Rarus adds, “This movie is a tribute to our ancestors and for those who have fought to change the world, whether in person at Gallaudet or around the world. Deaf President Now! is actually Deaf people now, and we have a lot to do.”

When asked by an audience member how younger people in the Deaf community can unite to implement the kind of change the Gallaudet four were able to bring about, Bourne recognizes that helping hearing people progress is difficult but necessary work. “Being Deaf is a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job, and we have to do it over and over and educate people every day,” says Bourne. “We want to get rid of the ignorance and let Deaf people lead, and that’s exactly what Davis did.” Covell, the most fiery of all the contributors, had a succinct call to action: “Please! Feel free to kick ass!”