as her family's unofficial translator and a key employee of their struggling fishing business. the film effectively blends the emotions of a coming—of—age drama with an authentic portrayal of deaf culture. director sian heder, a hearing person, worked hard to get it right. i spoke with a lot of codas, i got a their firsthand experiences, i reached out to members of the deaf community, i made deaf friends, i, you know — it really was — if i'm going to do this, have to make sure that i have the people around me to be the check and balance to my own perspective. portraying deaf culture authentically is not only the right thing to do but it also makes for far more cinematic storytelling. film, after all, is designed to capture motion, and while speaking dialogue aloud can obviously be effective, and we have almost