EXCLUSIVE: AppleTV+ has set a premiere date of May 16 for the Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim directed feature documentary, Deaf President Now!
The pic world premiered at Sundance and is currently playing at SXSW.
Deaf President Now! follows “the greatest civil rights movement most people have never heard of” per its blurb. During eight tumultuous days in 1988 at the world’s only Deaf university, four students must find a way to lead an angry mob to change the course of history.
DiMarco told Deadline’s Matt Carey at Sundance, “The Deaf President Now protest was a part of a much larger movement that was very much spurred by the actions of the deaf community in placing a deaf president as the head of Gallaudet. Not only did we succeed, but this protest, in fact, gave rise to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which protects so many of us in the community and allows us access in our daily lives.”
Guggenheim added, “We were doing the interviews together, and Nyle would constantly give me better questions. And at its core, we collaborated well because we needed each other. I am truly ignorant of the deaf experience. I started thinking I knew a little bit because I read a lot. And now at the end of this two-year process, I feel like I know less than I did. It’s a world that is rich and complex, and I am an outsider to that. And so, truly, what it was is Nyle having a big idea and me helping him execute it.”
AppleTV+’s previous Guggenheim docu, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie went on to win four Emmys including outstanding directing for a documentary, outstanding music composition for a documentary series or special, outstanding picture editing for a nonfiction program, as well as outstanding documentary or nonfiction special.
