After making Oscar history, Troy Kotsur pays tribute to his father in new short film

By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — When Troy Kotsur made history as the first Deaf male actor win an Oscar at the Academy Awards, he was thinking about his father. To Kotsur, his persistence comes directly from his father. At the Oscar podium, Kotsur called his dad his hero. In “To My Father,” a short film premiering this week at the Tribeca Film Festival, Kotsur extends and deepens that tribute to explain his father’s story and how it shaped him. Kotsur’s father was a police chief in Arizona who was paralyzed in a car accident, but still managed to communicate with his Deaf son.