Widow of Silence

“You can’t allow yourself to think for yourself”, Aasia’s colleague tells her. Aasia works as a nurse in a hospital in Kashmir to maintain herself, her 11-year-old daughter and her sick mother-in-law. She is a ‘half widow’: her husband, like many men in this Indian region, was arrested and never returned. Alongside her work and caring for her family, Aasia spends a lot of time trying to obtain a death certificate for her husband; a bleak game that she has been playing for seven years with a calculating civil servant.

This calm film, drenched in warm colours, in which the taxidriver provides a poetic note, makes it clear just how painful the political and social situation in Kashmir is. Attacks, sexual violence, humiliation and corruption are everyday phenomena. The protagonist is played by Shilpi Marwaha, but apart from that, Praveen Morchhale, who financed the film herself, makes use of non-professional local actors.

Trailer

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