THE TUBA THIEVES

A spate of robberies in Southern California schools had an oddly specific target: tubas. In this work of creative nonfiction, deaf first-time feature director Alison O’Daniel presents the impact of these crimes from an unexpected angle. The film unfolds mimicking a game of telephone, where sound’s feeble transmissibility is proven as the story bends and weaves to human interpretation and miscommunication. The result is a stunning contribution to cinematic language. O’Daniel has developed a syntax of deafness that offers a complex, overlaid, surprising new texture, which offers a dimensional experience of deafness and reorients the audience auditorily in an unfamiliar and exhilarating way.

Blending documentary and fictionalized performances by Nyke, a deaf woman playing herself, and Geovanny, a drum major of a burglarized, now-tubaless band, the film documents their lives during the years of the robberies. Against a backdrop of Los Angeles never quite seen — or heard, rather — quite like this, the main character is sound and lack thereof. A finely-tuned sense of silence and sound — aural and conceptual — are collaged to create this utterly singular sonic and cinematic experience.

2022 / 92 minutes
ASL + English

Official Website

Directed by Alison O’Daniel

Produced by: Alison O’Daniel, Rachel Nederveld, Su Kim, Maya Rudolph for Louverture
Consulting Producer: Alysa Nahmias

Written by: Alison O’Daniel
Cinematography by: Derek Howard
Edited by: Alison O’Daniel, Zack Khalil
Executive Produced by: Wendy Ettinger, Maida Lynn, Sally Jo Fifer
Co-Produced by: Eliza Moley
Supervising Editor: David Teague
Additional Cinematography: Judy Hu

Awards & Festivals

Sundance Film Festival
MoMA Doc Fortnight
CPH:DOX
Cleveland International Film Festival
Athens International Film + Video Festival
Wisconsin Film Festival
SFFILM
Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival
Ashland International Film Festival
Milwaukee Film Festival
Washington D.C. International Film Festival
Thin Line Doc Festival
Seattle International Film Festival
Austin Film Festival
Sydney Film Festival

Selected Press & Reviews

Variety Review
IndieWire Review
Vox 17 Movies to Watch Out for in 2023
Filmmaker Magazine Interview with Director & Cinematographer
Variety “Why Movie Theaters Need Open Captions” Guest Column by Alison O’Daniel
Paste Magazine Most Anticipated Films at Sundance 2023
Filmmaker Magazine Director Interview
POV Canada’s Documentary Magazine Director Interview
NPR All Things Considered Director Interview