Silvana

Silvana is a journey suspended between intimate memory and inner vertigo. Composed entirely of black-and-white archival footage, this short documentary transcends simple tribute to become a tender murmur, a visual poem about absence.

The deep, distant voice of a narrator guides us through devastated landscapes, anonymous faces, and fragments of a post-war world. Her story, woven from scattered memories and fragile anecdotes, evokes the mourning of a father, the drifting of an inconsolable mother, and the silent presence of death in daily life.

A frozen winter, a plane caught in a storm, fixed gazes, a motionless canary — the images do not describe, they suggest. They resonate, glide gently, carried by an unsettling score. The film moves slowly, as if each shot needed to be held, felt, absorbed. In this dense, nostalgic atmosphere, Silvana speaks of loss, but also of the silence it leaves behind. And when the mother, one day, chooses to join the absent, an entire world collapses.

More than a story of mourning, Silvana explores how intimate pain seeps into reality — and how, despite everything, something within us chooses to stay. To go on living.

Ayesha Sheikh
Filmmaker and former student of L'inis