Absolute Silence

That grade given on a piece of paper is not who you are...

Cast
Christina Wittet, Christopher McNeil, Cate Emond, David Tse, Marika Escaravage, Shekhar Prasad, Amanda Pelkola, Jasmine Elizabeth Bowen, Natalie Lobb, Heather-Claire Nortey, Quyen Vuong, Jaime Aliaga Gallo, Phil Hynes, Vanessa Yang Johnson, Jason Arthur Cronkwright

Written/Directed/Sound/Edited by
Anita S. Y. Lee

Produced by
Anita S. Y. Lee, A. J. Pantalone, Angie Chiang

Director of Photography
Christopher Redmond

Production Assistant
Sikhan Ariel Lee

Special Thanks
Papa Lee and Mama Lee Wu
Ann Sin-Hung Li, Hayden Lo
Tom McSorley and the Canadian Film Institute
Ottawa International Film Festival
Lee Gordon Demarbre
Peter Pienning
Dan Sokolowski
Phil Caracas
Jennifer Noseworthy
Ian Driscoll
IB & WKW
Ashleigh Horricks, Doug Smalley and SAW Video

"Absolute silence" from the quote:
Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death. --by Rousseau
(As explained by my friend who gave me the name of the film, "Rousseau is the philosopher whose writings influenced the French Revolution - since this is a revolution of sorts, I thought that might be kinda nice, if a bit obscure")

Spoiler for the film

The framing story is about an angry girl hating the school system, a system that stresses certain aspects of life (the words on the chalkboard) if one wants to succeed in it. The plastic wrapping scenes are her different stages of psychological struggle (different expressions), the plastic being the oppressions she feels. And in the final exiting scenes, the girl breaks free, but some other people will suffer under various kinds of systems. However, there will always be those who come out unharmed, excel and stay on top. As for the teacher, he is the unknowing executioner of the system that other feels is oppressive.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Ottawa
• Absolute
• Silence
• System
• Institution
• Success
• Failure
• Meaning
• Quit
• school
• Stupid
• Bad
• marks
• grades
• teachers
• failing

[IlBiondo78]

Love plastic on the face! wow!

[talsyott]

Haha, yeah, I thought this short film might also attract the fetish crowd as well. :)

Thanks for the comment

[NinjaCoto]

Good job everyone. I first saw this during our exam period and was like "I feel ya!"

[mowywowy727]

hmm...kids in highschool should watch this, it should be a commercial during pbs specials...

[kingshekhar]

awesome.

[arilane]

I know you've been working on this on and off for two years, so congrats on finally getting it out! Now get working on the next one :)