ON TCM TV. July 28, 8 pm. In 1993, independent producer/director Zeinabu Irene Davis and writer Marc Arthur Chery collaborated on Compensation (1999), a moving and innovative story about two very different couples from two very different time periods, each dealing with very similar problems. Michelle A. Banks and John Earl Jelks each play dual roles as the two different couples. In 1910 Chicago, Malindy (Banks) works as a non-hearing seamstress at a school for the deaf, who fights against the segregation of the times and falls in love with a hearing, but illiterate migrant worker (Jelks). Then, in present-day Chicago, Malaika is a successful graphic artist who falls for Nico, a librarian. Davis made several ingenious decisions while making her film. Committed to authenticity, she made a point of casting a real Deaf actress in the lead role and additional hearing-impaired actors for supporting roles. For the period segments of the film, Davis shot them as a silent movie, complete with archival photography and a ragtime score. The director also wanted to make the film a tribute to her native city and shot it in several locations not usually shown in Chicago-set movies, including the public library and the Ephphatha Lutheran Church of the Deaf. Though shot in 1993, the independent film had to wait six years to find a distributor. Once discovered on the festival circuit in 1999, "Compensation" received rave reviews and has since developed a growing reputation as a modern classic.