by Dominick Cross
LAFAYETTE — Conni Castille’s insightful documentaries are all about the culture where she was born and lives.
For years now, Castille, Senior Instructor Moving Image Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has trained her insider eye on what most people may take for granted about the Cajun and Creole cultures in South Louisiana and put it out for all to watch, enjoy and, yes, get a better understanding of these peoples.
From the ordinary task of ironing, there’s I Always Do My Collars First (2007), to tasty local staples and what it takes to put them on the table with Raised on Rice and Gravy (2009) and King Crawfish (2010); to a deep dive on the South Louisiana envie for its other favorite four-legged friends in T-Galop: A Louisiana Horse Story (2012).
And now with The Quiet Cajuns: One Heritage. Two Generations. One Disease, comes the story of two generations of Acadian Usher Syndrome, which has sprinkled many family trees with deafblind aunts, uncles and cousins.
The Quiet Cajuns, Saturday, March 12, 2022, 5 p.m., Acadiana Center for the Arts, 101 West Vermilion, Downtown Lafayette, LA Free and Open to the Public
The subject of the documentary, Acadian Usher Syndrome (AUS), may seem a departure from previous documentaries of daily life, food and horses/horse racing in South Louisiana, but not so for Castille.
“I don’t find it a departure at all. The DeafBlind Cajuns are merely a sub-culture of the Cajuns, a group I’ve always documented,” said Castille, who had not heard of AUS until then ULL biology professor, Phyllis Baudoin Griffard, brought it to her attention. “I learned there was a subculture of Cajuns who have never heard a fiddle waltz and who lose their vision because of a genetic quirk that came here with the Acadians.
“It made me think there may be others like me who didn’t know that the largest population of DeafBlind Americans lives right here in Acadiana,” she said.
Griffard, who has the Usher Syndrome gene variant in her family, launched OurBio, a curriculum/oral history project that explores how the biology of our region shapes the story of its people.
“I initially contacted Conni because of her film, King Crawfish, a wonderful example of how I envisioned an OurBio project could work, teaching biology through local examples,” said Griffard. “Like our bayous and prairies, the genetics of Usher Syndrome presented an opportunity to tell a good story about ourselves.”
Castille hopes the documentary can help the afflicted by making more people aware of AUS and what’s available to them.
“First, I think the film may help in identifying more DeafBlind in our community, making them more aware of the services available to them, as well as offering an opportunity to connect to the larger DeafBlind community,” Castille said. “Second, the general Cajun population can learn about the disease through the film. Understanding more about one’s genetic history can always be beneficial.
“Third, we will hand out greeting etiquette guiding anyone who may see or meet a Deaf or DeafBlind person,” she said. “This can encourage contact, making the seeing population more willing to visit with the Deaf or DeafBlind.”
The usual suspects came together to make the documentary on a shoestring budget.
“With little to no funding, I was fortunate to have the creative team I’ve worked with in my previous documentaries agree to help me with this passion project,” said Castille, with a nod to cinematographers Allison Bohl Dehart and Brian C. Miller Richard and others.
“The cinematography is beautiful. Students in our UL Moving Image Arts film program helped produce the film by working as second camera units and in some post-production,” she said. “I had the pleasure of meeting and working with local editor, Trevor Navarre, for the first time. His total creative immersion in the project, and his attention to detail, added deep emotion to the script.”
The film is closed-captioned. Following the screening there will be Q&A session. Platform interpretation in American Sign Language will be provided.