Student film selected as finalist in the My Hero International Film Festival

A film by MSUM Film Production major, Miah Detjen, was recently selected as a finalist in the My Hero International Film Festival.

The short film, Daddy, is a partially silent non-ficiton piece about Miah and her deaf father. The documentary offers a glimpse into Miah’s life growing up with a deaf father, and the two worlds (hearing and deaf) that collide daily. Miah wanted a hearing audience to experience a film the way a deaf audience would: in silence. However with closed captioning, deaf and hearing audiences may enjoy the film together. Miah’s film was also an official selection of this year’s South Dakota Film Festival.

Miah is a junior, studying film production and creative writing at Minnesota State University Moorhead. She is the president of the American Sign Language Club (ASL) and is an active member in several other clubs and organizations that work with incoming freshmen. The film, Daddy, was made for one of her classes in 2012 and was awarded Best Non-Fiction Video at the Cinema Arts and Digital Technologies Juried Film Screening that same year.

Miah and her parents will be traveling to Los Angeles to attend the My Hero International Film Festival on Nov. 23 at the University of Southern California. Her film, Daddy, will also be screened at her club’s spring event, ASL Night, that welcomes the deaf and hearing community for a night of entertainment, games and to learn simple signs, facts and history about deaf culture.