
Deaf President Now! Highlights The Difference Between Hearing and Listening
Film Interviews
It takes courage and conviction to be a voice for change. It doesn’t, however, require vocalization. Deaf President Now!, a rousing new documentary that had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2025, tells a powerful and important story of a community of Deaf college students — led by Greg Hlibok, Tim Rarus, Bridgetta Bourne-Firl and Jerry Covell — who would come to be known as the DPN 4 and who refused to silenced.
“The problem is not that Deaf people can’t hear. The problem is often that hearing people don’t listen,” Hlibok says. The newly appointed Student Body President at Gallaudet University in 1988,

Hlibok became a crucial spokesperson after the university’s board of trustees chose a hearing president over several highly qualified Deaf candidates. The decision ignited an eight-day movement of rallies, boycotts and demonstrations, ultimately forcing the resignation of the hearing president and appointment of I. King Jordan as Gallaudet’s first Deaf President, marking a watershed moment for the Deaf community. “In all of these years, so much effort has been put in to try to get our rights as people, but they really haven’t listened,” Hlibok says. “And so at one point, we had to say enough was enough. That led to our protest. We forced them to listen to us and to recognize the abilities that we have as people.”
Covell, the radically charismatic member of the group who has a gift for stirring up a crowd, sees the film as an opportunity to share the story of the protests with future generations in a very tangible way. “I’m very emotional. It’s been 37 years, and we can finally have our story told,” Covell says. “Our children, our future generations, are going to be able to look at this movie and say ‘We can do it, we can make a difference.’ And hopefully it will motivate them to do great things.” Co-directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) and actor and Deaf activist-turned-filmmaker Nyle DiMarco, the film captures a pivotal moment in civil rights history—one that helped lay the groundwork for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). “Nyle brought the project to our company and I immediately saw this incredible story,” Guggenheim says. ”And Nyle said that for too long, hearing people have been telling the stories of Deaf community. What if he could be at the front of this [to] tell the story from a Deaf perspective? And that’s what I’m so proud [of] about this movie, is my ability to sort of assist Nyle in telling this great story.

DiMarco, a Gallaudet graduate and a vocal advocate for Deaf representation in media, made sure that this film placed the Deaf community at the forefront. “I’m here to tell an incredible story about a civil rights movement that has really been erased from history,” DiMarco says. “So many people in America don’t understand that this happened. And it was a very important Deaf movement. Of course, we wanted a Deaf president at the world’s only Deaf university, but this was also part of a larger movement. It gave rise to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.” The pairing of DiMarco and Guggenheim was key to the film’s success, something that former Gallaudet student body leader Greg Hlibok emphasized. “I wanna stress that Nyle and Davis are co-directors of this event, and it would not have been successful without both of them involved together. This was a match made in heaven for this project. Both of their expertise brought this movie together and moved it forward.”
Tim Rarus, who was the outgoing head of the former student government prior to Hlibok ‘s election, believes that the teaming of DiMarco and Guggenheim made for a rare opportunity to make a film that would inform and educate while entertaining. “Davis is just great. He allowed Nyle to run with this project,” Rarus says. “And he told me that when he lived in D.C. growing up, he never heard about Deaf President Now!. And after learning more about this, with the help of Nyle, he said, ‘This story has to be told.’”
More than 35 years after the protests, Deaf President Now! aims to ensure that this story is recognized as a major civil rights milestone. “My hope today is to really put this movement on the map,” DiMarco says. “To make it part of the forefront of what we learn in places like high school.” Bourne-Firl, the fiery feminist of the foursome, also sings the praises of the filmmakers in bringing about change by sharing this part of history. “We want to get rid of the ignorance and let Deaf people be,” Bourne-Firl says. “And that’s exactly what Davis did. He’s this award winning director and he allowed for Nyle to lead this because he knows his stuff. And we all can do the same thing.”
Following its Sundance premiere, Deaf President Now! will be available later this year on AppleTV+, where a wide audience will have the opportunity to see it and learn from it. The film and its subjects stand as a testament to the power of activism, the importance of representation and the fight to truly be heard.
Read more of SLUG’s coverage of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.