Fischer and Baker together. Photo by Kelly Brand.
Striking up a conversation with a stranger in a bar is hard. Striking up a conversation with the deaf man that has caught your eye is even harder.
Three years ago though, that’s just what Gabriel Fischer did when he wrote out and showed a text message introducing himself to Patrick Baker at a D.C. bar. The two men have since shared three years together and Fischer, a DC-based hair stylist, has not only learned how to sign with his partner, but has extended his new linguistic knowledge to create a niche clientele, cutting hair for the deaf in D.C.
Fischer and Baker’s relationship attracted the attention of a two young DC filmmakers. Riley Kirkpatrick, 22 and Katharina Werner, 22, both seniors at The George Washington University, are in the process of shooting a documentary-short on Patrick and Gabriel and the social obstacles they face as they toe the line between the hearing and the hearing-impaired world.
Kirkpatrick, an aspiring documentary filmmaker, first heard of the men’s story while having an unfortunate hair color mix-up fixed. Fischer was her stylist.
“The whole point of it is bridging barriers,” Werner told Sweet Lemon. The two college seniors hope that the couple’s personal story shines a light on everyday struggles that average couples don’t face, or even think about.
Interviews will be conducted both verbally and through signing. Kirkpatrick and Werner plan to hire a production company to subtitle the work properly to make it accessible to both hearing and deaf audiences.
When it comes down to it, all parties involved want this story to promote one all-encompassing feeling: empathy. It’s the word tattooed on one of Kirkpatrick’s fingers and it has become the message fueling this documentary.
“He met a person that he wanted to be able to communicate with and took it on by himself,” said Kirkpatrick. “Hearing people can relate to that.”
“It’s a joy for us to imagine our story inspiring other people to take risks and open their network up to new people and opportunities, become more empathetic to other people and their situations, and to create stories of their own that inspire others to do the same,” Fisher said.
The documentary is currently in production. Werner and Kirkpatrick hope to premiere the film at Gallaudet University, a deaf university in Washington D.C., this spring.
Read more about the project on GLAAD or go fund the project on GoFundMe.com.
By Kelly Brand
