Description
Genre: Narrative Short Film
Estimated Duration: 27 minutes
Topic: Female Genital Mutilation
Cutting Silence is a short film particularly suitable as an installation piece. It tells the story of a small contemporary North African family having to deal with the traditional practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). The main focus of the film falls on a young mute woman, Haadiya, who has lived with the effects of FGM all her life. Now that the time has come for her own daughter, Karida, to be circumcised, lost memories about her own experience start to return and fill her mind with doubt. However, a culture that demands infabulation (cutting and sewing shut) for social acceptance makes her situation more complex.
When Tawvah, bearing the hidden scars of her own infabulation, shows up to do the circumcision on Karida, Haadiya is forced to make a quick and drastic decision.