SAMT (Silence)

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Audience Rating: (1) login to rate this Embed		Directed by Rob Nilsson Written by SAMT Workshop participants Produced by Farah Daghistani John Stout Genre Foreign Drama Middle Eastern Runtime: 115 min Release Date: August 2007 Filmmaker's Website Send to Friends URL:
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Plot Outline

As the world fixes its attention on political tensions in the Middle East, everyday residents of the Kingdom of Jordan live out their lives. The things that matter most to people go on in the shadow of war.

Ashtar, a young Jordanian woman from a traditional family seeks greater personal freedom. She gets permission from her father to attend a youth conference. Her brother, Jihad, is challenged by his friends. How can he allow his sister to mingle freely at a modern event with young men present? Jihad assures them that only women will attend.

Can a lie be told in service of a greater truth? What are the duties of a daughter to her father? And what does it take to become a woman who seeks equality in a man’s world?

SAMT delves deep into Jordanian culture, politics, and everyday life to capture the drama of this brother and sister, and doubles as a larger examination of the clash between modernization and ancient tradition.

Directed by Rob Nilsson, winner of the Camera d'Or at Cannes and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Filmmaker Notes

A film from the SAMT Media Workshop, Amman Jordan. Sponsored by the Queen Zein Al-Sharaf Institute for Development.

Rob Nilsson shoots his films with the Direct Action Cinema philosophy, which he describes as:

In my Direct Action lab the story which occurs to me, coming from God knows where, is only a starting point, a road map, a pithy suggestion of a juicy outcome. If I were writing a novel, I’d write it, edit it, worry it to death, and it would come from inside me, onto the page, and into your minds through the medium of language.

But if it’s a film, I have many more tricks up my sleeve, many more arrows in my quiver to employ, a totally different set of possibilities to explore, wider and more fertile collaborations to manage. My idea is: the more open my process in the beginning, the more options I will have for form, structure, and content in the end.

Therefore, I don’t write scripts. Most of the time. SIGNAL 7 and HEAT AND SUNLIGHT didn’t have scripts. STROKE, HUSHED, SINGING, and SCHEME, the new 9@NIGHT features, don’t have scripts. They have what I call scenarios: descriptions of a film idea, scene order, character suggestions. Rehearsals consist of improvising the character’s back story at great length, taking as much time as possible to give actors on-location experience (as opposed to intellectualized ideas) of their characters. The ideal is to do all of this out in the world in front of cameras. Then one day the back story ends and the film begins. Nothing changes, but now we’re making the movie. I have set the actors, cameras, art directors and other creators free into their cinematic world. I am still a sort of puppeteer, yes, but a puppeteer who wants to set the puppets free.

Wants to, but never quite does.

Castlist
Suha Najjar - Ashtar
Jihad - Jihad
Dima Al Sharif - Dima
Mohammed Hoshky - Shiko
Omar Sharif - Omar
Zad El Hkeir Al Sharif - Zad
Ahmad Takrouri - Ahmad
Alia Khleifat - Alia
Mohammed Ma'ayta - Mohammed
Hazem - Hazem
Essa Mussa - Essa

Sound
Al Nelson

Cinematographers
Mickey Freeman

Film Editors
Chikara Motomura