'Silence' recently won 'Best Drama' at the Aesthetica Film Festival in York, a BAFTA-recognised film festival. That's a pretty special thing, as this is a very crowded genre at the Festival, full of amazing work. To be voted the best is pretty incredible and a huge accomplishment. So, why did it win?
As one of the Drama programmers at the festival (www.asff.co.uk), it was one of the few films I listed first off as a potential award-winner. I think it pushed a lot of boundaries, had the boldness to show some pretty racy stuff that I hadn't really seen in a short film very often before. In fact I even had it rated as an 18 with a question mark at one point, albeit that might have been thinking with a rather conservative hat on. It is masterful in it's treatment of the audience and taking them on the journey of its powerful main character. And with regard to sound, you'd be hard pushed to find another short film that worked as hard at creating a landscape of the world of this person, this character. What a job they did! So much so, that I stopped thinking about it and I BELIEVED it. Those are the films, the films that immediately immerse you in their worlds, that tend to win it all.
