Synopsis

The Jyvaskyla School for Visually Impaired Children is merging with the Haukkaranta School for the Hearing Impaired, to create a single entity, ONERVA.  The building of ONERVA in Jyvaskyla is designed as a pioneering example of barrier-free education, implementing the latest technological innovations creating a multi-sensory learning and development center that will be unique in its scope and outreach. The timeline of the film follows the construction of the new building and the merging, of visually impaired and hearing impaired students coming together in one, multi-sensory facility. In the end of 2015 the new school should be completed

But the real content of the film are the students themselves. Without intrusive interviews, without exposition, we will observe and follow students of elementary, junior high school and high school age, students with very different physical characteristics and challenges, and get to know these children in a very honest, poignant manner. In terms of telling a cinematic narrative, working with the students from Onerva provides a unique opportunity of shifting the emphasis seamlessly back and forth between those students that rely extensively, some exclusively on sound as a means of understanding their environment and those students that instead rely only on what they see. Shifting the perspective in this way, from sound to vision, will make for an absorbing, mesmerizing experience for the viewer.