James Castle is an artist, born profoundly deaf in Garden Valley, Idaho. He spent his life drawing with soot and spit, and painting on recovered cardboard and paper. At the Institution for the Deaf and the Blind of Gooding, he suffered the abuses of oral pedagogy which forced the Deaf to speak and prohibited sign language. James' work is now exhibited in museums in the United States, Europe, Japan, but do we remember that he was Deaf?

Brigitte Lemaine, who was raised in sign language by Deaf grandparents, goes to meet the descendants of James. On the way, she visits the James Castle Collection & Archive, the James Castle House, and specialists in Deaf Culture. Brigitte identifies themes in James' work showing that being Deaf is a unique way of seeing and thinking about the world.

[Poster image description: A film poster for the film “James Castle, the Silent Way.“ A charcoal sketch of a person’s head and upper torso is shown in the middle. Underneath the picture is blue text: “James Castle. -La Voie Silencieuse- The Silent Way.” On the top, blue text: Un film de / A film by Brigitte Lemaine. Image - Michel Tabanou, Montage/Editing - Daphne Leblond, Mixage/Mixing - Fabien Krzyzanowski.” On the bottom are logos for FotoFilmEcrit, Idaho Humanities Council, Rochester Institute of Technology, Images En Bibliotheques, and Region Ile-de-France, and Val-de-Marne department. Under the middle three logos are black text: “Supported by: Idaho Humanities Council, James Castle Collection & Archive, Rochester Institute of Technology, selectionne par Images en Bibliotheques.”]

[Movie still image description: A Black and white soot sketching showing two images. The image on the left side shows an abstract drawing of a person’s head and shoulders. The head is replaced by a boxlike square with a black hole and white ridges on the edges. The image on the right shows another abstract drawing of a person’s head and shoulders with the shoulders depicting a suit jacket and tie. The head has a black border around a white square with three figures inside.]