“Let the World Hear!” film shown at the film club meeting at the Presidential Library

On the eve of the Medical Worker Day, a documentary film "Let the World Hear!" was shown at the meeting of the Presidential Library's film club.

Its characters are three young people, like you and me: they study, work, spend time with their family, listen to music and dance. There is only one "but". All of them at different time had lost their hearing completely, but unique medical technologies gave a chance to return from the world of absolute silence to the world of sounds, speech and music. Another invisible hero of the film is a sound: the sound of rain, the rustling of tires, the sound of wind.

According to Arkady Sosnov, the author of the idea and the script, as well as the film’s director, the editor-in-chief of Russkiy Metsenat almanac, the impulse for the film creation was a visit to the "Magic Symphony" - an international music festival for children with hearing impairments. It was there that he perceived the problems of those who are deprived of the ability to hear. One of them is a youth from St. Petersburg, who had had meningitis in his childhood, lost both sight and hearing. It was impossible to regain the sight, but the hearing was restored with the help of cochlear implant. Today the young man is a fourth-year student of the Law Faculty of St. Petersburg State University, he does sports and writes poetry. The authors of the film decided to follow his life and lives of two other outstanding young people whom Arkady Sosnov calls "people X".

A team of journalists, directors and cameramen had worked on the documentary "Let the World Hear!" The film’s creation involved active participation of specialists who work every day on problems of hearing restoration: doctors, psychologists, deaf educators and scientists. Filming was conducted in Russia, Slovakia, Austria, and Kazakhstan.

After the film was shown, there was a discussion dealing with the current situation with hearing restoration in Russia; the main problems of the postoperative period and ways of solution; the gained experience of Russian specialists in quality support after the cochlear implant installation; the way to prepare the society for the perception of people, especially children who hear the world through implants; successful people who have overcome deafness; the issue whether it could have been possible to cure Beethoven, whose music sounds in the film, with the help of cochlear implantation, and the power of cinema to convince people to believe in themselves and help them fulfil their potential.

Vladislav Kuzovkov, MD, leading otosurgeon in Russia and in the world; Inna Koroleva, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, author of books and manuals for the rehabilitation of children and adults after cochlear implantation; Arkady Sosnov, the film’s author, editor-in-chief of Russkiy Metsenat almanac answered the questions of the audience. Another guest of the event at the Presidential Library’s multimedia room was one of the film characters Nikolai Kuznetsov - the very first blind and deaf boy in Russia who, due a cochlear implant restored hearing and now is a successful student, a future graduate lawyer and possibly a famous poet.