Silence
UK, 1998
Directors: Orly Yadin, Sylvie Bringas
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 11 minutes
Short synopsis
Tana Ross, a victim of the Holocaust, tells her personal story of survival, and of the years of enforced silence that followed.
Long synopsis
In this film, Tana Ross, a victim of the Holocaust, tells her story of survival for the first time. She speaks about her past and the reasons for her fifty-year silence in first person narration over animated visuals and specially composed music. She reflects on the strategies she developed for survival, when she could not talk about her memories and pain. Tane explains how her grandmother hid her so that the Nazi soldiers could not find her, after Tana's mother had been taken to Auschwitz.
Silence does not dwell on the concentration camp experiences though, but focuses mostly on what happened after the war. The five-year-old child was sent to join relatives in Sweden where she was forbidden to ask questions about the fate of her mother or speak about her own experiences. As Tana describes forgetting German and learning Swedish, she evokes a sense of loss. When she left Sweden at 20, she was given a collection of letters sent by her mother to her aunt and uncle before she was taken to Auschwitz. They tell a tale of desperation and courage and act as Tana's bridge to the past. The silence was broken.
Background information
About the film
Silence developed as a continuation of a live performance given by Holocaust survivor Tana Ross at an event held by the Swedish government to commemorate World War II. Noa Ain composed the music and wrote the text for Through the Silence - Concerto for Cello & Survivor. Tana later approached her friend Orly Yadin to collaborate on a film of the piece. Together with Sylvie Bringas, she chose to use several animation styles, with some live-action archive footage, to represent a child's point of view, and to help the audience identify with Tana.
About the film-makers
Orly Yadin was born in Israel and has been living in London since 1977. She started working in television on documentaries, drawing extensively on archival material. Since 1986 she has produced animation films as well as documentary programmes. Sylvie Bringas was born in France and has been living in London since 1989. She worked as a freelancer in multimedia on various productions and teaches animation.
Teaching materials and additional materials
The teaching materials have been developed by practising teachers to provide a springboard for your own work with your students. Feel free to use and adapt them appropriate to your students' needs.
The additional materials, provided by the film-makers, can be used to develop your work with the film and deepen students' understanding of the process of film-making.
