ORIA FILMS

Cinema –as Rossellini said- should also be a record of the world we live in. The intention of "Broken Silence" is therefore to record an era of our recent history, a dark and tragic era we have tried to silence and forget, although regrettably we can see the same thing happening again in the present –with different players and in different scenarios - in the horrors of Kosovo, Colombia, Chechnya, … because forgetting only leads to repeating the same mistakes and causing similar disasters. Speaking about our past is essential to understand the reasons behind the present: it is remembering that intolerance leads to violence, and this in turn is the seed of total injustice.

When we die, we are then only what others remember about us, and if no one remembers us, it is as if we never lived. The aim of "Broken Silence" is therefore to let those speak who never had the opportunity before now, and to recover –through their words and memories- the hopes and ideals they lived and died for: thus their names and their actions will never be erased from history.

The script of "Broken Silence" is the result of conversations with those who took part in the events in the film and of research and studies of publications about the anti-Francoist guerrillas. Although the characters and their dramatic development are based on the requirements of a narrative and thematic structure so that the story makes sense, and are therefore invented by the scriptwriter, they are inspired by real people’s conduct and attitudes. The most important events of the guerrilla movement have also been respected in chronological order so that the characters’ changes in fortune reflect the social and political context of the time.

"Broken Silence" does not attempt to take sides or to assess the con-duct of those who took part in the tragic conflict related in the film, nor is the intention to open up old wounds: its aim is to remember a part of our history and to show it as objectively as possible, so that knowledge can help the peoples in this world to understand each other better.

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