The films and methods of Nicolas Philibert, maker of Etre et avoir, have shown him to be one of contemporary cinemas most acclaimed documentarists. In The Land of the Deaf is an elegantly spare and thoughtful portrait of the rich, diverse, but often isolated culture of the deaf community. Each frame is imbued with a profoundly human compassion and he achieves remarkable intimacy with his subjects as they go about their daily lives. In The Land of the Deaf has tremendous power and value: it educates and transports us, in a very pleasurable way, to another way of occupying this world, and it does so in an unrushed, intelligent fashion.