Silence

Colour, 35mm
Poland, 2001, 93 min
Section: Official Selection - Competition

Synopsis

The first film from the eight-part series “The Stigmatised” in which screenwriter Krzysztof Piesiewiscz treats the issue of human identity. The heroes are in their thirties. She is an assertive manager of a cosmetics firm immersed in the rhythms of techno both in and out of the workplace. He is an engineer working with freight trains, an inconspicuous man from the grey masses. As a child he had inadvertently caused a car accident in which her parents died. Tormented by his conscience, he seeks her, follows her and finally speaks to her. He tells her out that her daughter, now being looked after by her grandmother, is threatened with an inherited disease. After learning this, the emancipated woman, who has until now known only the inside of boarding schools and student halls of residence, realises she needs to discover more about her family origins, to discover her rightful place. The initially fleeting dialogue between two people from different social environments and with differing characters, grows from a shared need to reassess values such as compassion, tolerance and mutuality, founded on a prosaic gesture of collaboration.

About the director

Michal Rosa (b. 1963) first studied architecture (1988) and then continued with radio and television direction at the Silesian University in Katowice (1992), where he now teaches. His film Military Fun and Games (1991, Gry i zabawy wojskowe) was nominated for an Oscar in the student film category. For his TV film Hot Thursday (Goracy czwartek) he won an award for Best Debut at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia in 1994. He won a number of domestic awards in 1997 for his feature debut Paint (Farba). Silence received the Director’s Prize at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia in 2001.