Polish director/producer Anna Konik presented her latest project during Krakow 2021. Set in London, Silence Heard Loud tells the stories of seven people who have been fighting a desperate battle for freedom and dignity.
The seven characters in Konik’s Silence Heard Loud have fled from war, terrorism, ethnic hatred, persecution or domestic violence. Having escaped death, they can now start a new life in Europe. But soon they are faced with self‐doubt and begin to question the meaning of their lives, as their future is unknowable. Why? Because their problems are complex and pertain to the times in which we live: alienation, racism, loneliness, endless asylum procedures with no permission to work in the meantime, uncertainty about the future, and longing for family and home.
“I met my protagonists in London when I was invited to lead an art workshop at Birkbeck, University of London, in 2018. Overwhelmed by their stories, feelings, experiences and daily struggles, I decided to give a voice to the voiceless and visibility to invisible,” says director Konik, whose Under a Placid Sky (2018) world premiered at the 58th Krakow Film Festival.
“So I started to work with seven people to reflect the complexity of contemporary disasters. Among others I worked with Mohammed who was forced to fight for the rebels in Sierra Leone when he was just as six years old, with Michael, who was in a gang, was in a prison and was a homeless person, and with a beautiful young woman who was forced into a marriage, [but] luckily divorced.”
The project notes add how protagonist Michael is determined “that he will never have offspring – it would be cruel to bring children to this toxic world.”
In Krakow, editor Agnieszka Kowalczyk added how, “each story amplifies the others even though the seven narratives are very, very different. The viewer receives at the end one large view on who the refugees are.”
“We pay a lot of attention on the visual aspect of the film, as well as on the sound design. We show our characters in the very intimate situations. We let them speak freely. We also show them in their everyday life. These are edited with shots of London that is presented as a very crowded, noisy and exhausting city. In the film, we also use animation to show, in a symbolic way, the tragedy of human fate.”
Currently in post-production, the €95,000 budget project was lensed between October 2019 and February 2020. €40,000 is needed to complete the multi-language project (English, Arabic, Ibo, Amharic and Geez). Confirmed partners on the project are Compass Project Birkbeck University and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. During Krakow, Konik was looking for festival and sales interest, distributors, broadcast and pre-sales. Delivery is slated for July 2021.
“We believe that this project with its experimental plot approach and sensitive visual language will have a strong social impact and will give and bring new perspective on the subject,” Konik concluded.
