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ABOUT THIS FILM Back in 1991, a 34 minute short film called Milan: The Last Power of Language was made as part of the final year film project at the now defunct North East Media Training Centre in Gateshead, UK. It was a two-year professional film and TV course between 1989 and 1991 which had the first-ever six Deaf trainees, including Nick Sturley who wrote the MILAN novel and created this milan1880.com website. Inspired by the excellent Milan 1880 themed play, The Last Flickering Light of Hope, by Doncaster Deaf Drama Group which was performed at the British Deaf Association's Centenary Congress in 1990 and also Harlan Lane's influential When The Mind Hears book, Nick Sturley wrote and directed this short film on a shoestring budget of only £1,300. It is a sort of a modern fantasy retelling of the infamous historical event in which a metaphorical Milan returns and transforms the entire British Deaf community into oral-speaking Deaf people and the main character, John who is the sole survivor, has to seek out Milan and destroy it in order to restore the signing Deaf community. It is no means a masterpiece, however, it was well received by those who saw it. Nick subsequently "remade" this story into a sprawling and epic story in his critically acclaimed and award-winning 2003 novel shown in this website.
Sadly, due to the demise of North East Media Training Centre in 1996 or 1997 and for some unexplainable reason, the only original masters of this film were missing or delted in spite of an extensive search. The only copies in existence are the VHS tapes in which Nick still has. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the VHS format, the picture quality has decacyed over the years.The present picture quality has been digitally preserved though not 100% perfect. The film is subtitled throughout.
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Milan 1880 History & The Congress are OPEN source material and therefore can be used for any purposes without the consent as long as the milan1880.com is acknowledged. Some of the images in both sections are copyrighted by the original source material . | ||
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