The Silence (Il silenzio)
Ajyal Competition - Ajyal Youth Film Festival 2016
Ali Asgari, Farnoosh Samadi / Short Narrative / Italy, France / 2016 / 15 min / Colour / DCP2K / In English, Italian, Kurdish / Arabic, English subtitles / Qatar Premiere
Rated: Parental guidance advised for viewers under the age of 15. Individuals under the age of 15 are not admitted into cinemas unless accompanied by an individual aged 18 or over.
Synopsis
Young Fatma, a Kurdish refugee, accompanies her mother Cahide on a visit to the hospital. Unable to locate an interpreter and so unable to communicate with Cahide about the nature of her very serious illness, the doctor explains to Fatma the extreme urgency of admitting her mother for immediate treatment. Trapped and distressed in a space that exists between cultures, amid several languages, and at the stepping-off point from childhood to adulthood, Fatma is terrified to face the circumstances of Cahide’s diagnosis and can only retreat into silence in an attempt to prevent her already fragile world from crashing down.
About the Director
Born in 1982 in Tehran, Ali Asgari studied cinema in Italy. He began his career as an assistant director and worked on 10 feature films and more than 30 short films. His shorts have been screened at numerous film festivals around the world. In 2013 he was an alumnus at the Berlinale Talent Campus.
Farnoosh Samadi was born in Iran and graduated from the Fine Arts Academy in Rome. She wrote the screenplays for the short films ‘More Than Two Hours’ (2013), which screened in the Official Competition at the Festival de Cannes, and ‘The Baby’ (2014), which premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival, among others. She is currently co-writing a feature-length film with Ali Asgari, which has been accepted at the Cinéfondation Residence at Cannes. ‘The Silence’, her first short film, had its premiere in the Official Competition at Cannes this year.
Credits
- Director
- Ali Asgari, Farnoosh Samadi
- Screenwriter
- Farnoosh Samadi, Ali Asgari
- Producer
- Giovanni Pompili, Olivier Chantriaux
- Editor
- Mauro Rossi
- Cinematographer
- Alberto Marchiori
- Sales Company
- Manifest Pictures
- Production Company
- Kino Produzioni, Filmo
- Cast
- Fatma Alakus, Cahide Ozel, Valentina Carnelutti