Slash FF review: Song of Silence (2025)
Slash Film Festival
Fantastic Shorts Competition
Fantastic Futures
A cinematographic warning regarding life after WWIII, the dystopian Song of Silence competes for the Fantastic Futures Award – more fantastic than the one in the film – at the 16th edition of the SLASH Film Festival. Written by Daisy Anderson in collaboration with the director Vasilisa Kuzmina, the short explores the matriarchal, female-only community formed after the collapse of the patriarchal and extremist one – a scenario that is all too familiar today.
The defining characteristic of this chosen family is that every member is mute: the „bad men” cut their tongues off. The language sign is used as a means of communication, while the audience understands the dialogue thanks to the subtitles. The expressivity of the cast is laudable, especially under these circumstances. Chromatically, the yellowish-nude nuances of the landscape and the ragged clothes worn by the survivors are specific to the genre, symbolising a barren and impoverished territory, far removed from the once-prosperous civilisation. One in which every pregnancy is followed carefully, since it has become as vital as water.
But what happens when the son of the leader is the first soldier to come back from the frontlines? He gets caught exactly like a fish in the net. The young woman’s sensually creepy humming resembles the one of a mermaid, attracting him into a deadly trap. Despite his mother’s love, she cannot do anything to save him. Everyone made sacrifices. Rules are rules, democracy worked against them and he, the only one who can speak, says it better than anyone else: „I don’t think I belong here”. Blood is a regular occurrence, only anticipating an ending which is never shown on the screen. The waves are calling, the choir is singing, and a barbaric world unfolds. The ritual begins.
Directed by: Vasilisa Kuzmina
Screenplay by: Vasilisa Kuzmina, Daisy Anderson
Produced by: Quiping Han
Cinematography by: Dominika Podczaska
Production Design: Elli Kypriadis
Editing: Yuntong “Hazel” Dai
Executive Producer: Daniel Knight
Associate Producers: Douglas Ridloff, Konstantin Tublin
Cast: Deanne Bray, Sophia Morales, Grigoriy Dobrygin, Linda Bove, Yamila Davis,
Catelene Sacchetti, Amelia Hensley, Sarah Tubert, Kristina Baryshnikova, Beatrix Donnelly
Unit Production Manager: Kenza Berrada Amor
First Assistant Director: Vaibhavi Bansal Yana Gladkikh
Composers: Mikolaj Tchorzewski, Miroslawa Markowska
Vocals: Myla Park
