It is early summer, exceptionally hot and humid. Malek is living on the ground floor of an old building by the sea, single with no family ties. She is frequently mocked by her friends, Khaled and Azza, because of her passions for Roman mosaics and for spying on her strange neighbors. It is the day- to- day life she has chosen. But when night falls, the wild violent rowing she hears from behind her neighbors’ closed door plunges her into fits of anguish. Dark memories resurface. She is sure there is a Monster living in her building. It sends her messages, enters her apartment when she is away. The day she met Jihène, a new tenant, who she immediately befriends, was the day the monster came knocking at her door. (Credits: Sophia HAOUES and Liz WORRAL)
This project has been developed in collaboration with my screenwriter Sophia Haoues, as in our view her input was essential when dealing with certain issues seriously affecting Tunisia today.
We wanted to get away from the traditional, often sensational attitudes regarding these issues and so avoiding frequently accepted views. This is why, from the very start of writing, we felt that choosing a strong free young woman, an ordinary heroine, was vital in order to convey the reality in Tunisia today.
Then came the choice of the main decor, a building by the sea. A neglected old colonial building, a little dilapidated, like so many found in Tunisia today. Inside, an extraordinary fauna, a human zoo where tenants try to survive or simply find meaning to their existence, reminiscent of the renowned Desmond Morris’s concept of the urban animal.
So many portraits make up the ‘living flesh’ of this scenario, a social microcosm that partly tells the story of this country. Sexual misery, relationships of domination, endemic poverty, not to mention the metaphorical dimension of evil that gnaws, are described with the precision of an entomologist.
Amid this misery is Malek, discreet, fragile, and yet ironic, hiding a terrible secret, a secret which will lead her to break her shackles taking her revenge on fate. In this old building where everyone is watching everyone, a reflection of an intolerant, often racist Tunisian society, it is very difficult to protect one’s privacy and make a life choice without anyone contradicting or opposing it.
From the impetuous homosexual tenant who seeks adventures as if there were no tomorrow, to the single woman who abandons her little daughter for a younger man, to the taxi driver who beats his mute wife with absolute indifference, to the young black woman who has traveled from her home in the south to be with her Tunisian boyfriend, to the disturbing concierge with copies of keys to all apartments, this film is a dive into the heart of a desperately devious daily life. It brings us a series of snapshots taken on the spot where humanity argues with the sordid, a prism that reflects back our own image, fragmented, broken, emptied of its substance.
“Silentium is also the struggle of a young woman, a rape victim, yet free-spirited, living in a Tunisian society that remains deeply committed to its tribal and patriarchal DNA.”
Nidhal CHATTA
Hichem ROSTOM was to star in my film “SILENTIUM”. His character named RAMADI is a hermit living in the basement of the house and suffering from a genetic disease porphyria. The character was indeed the part of humanity which had been lost, a man of great spirituality, the Milky way man. He unfortunately passed away before we could start filming his part. He will be missed.
Acting is at one and the same time the simplest and the most complex of the arts. It is one of the simplest because everybody does it more or less instinctively from early childhood to the end of his life. It is one of the most complex because it involves every cell and organ of the human body (Anindita Gosh, Indian actress).
Hichem ROSTOM was one of those actors to the highest state of his art, a man of conviction, courage and action, a human in every regard, a light bearer who always planted the seeds of a better future. Rest in peace my friend !
