| Title | UNQUIET VOICES |
| Brand | ANAIS ASSOCIATION |
| Product/Service | NGO |
| Category |
F01. Use of Film |
|
Entrant
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CENTRADE CHEIL BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
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|
Idea Creation
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CENTRADE CHEIL BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
|
|
PR
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BAD UNICORN Bucharest, ROMANIA
|
|
Production
|
STUDIOSET Bucharest, ROMANIA
|
|
Additional Company
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ATELIERU Bucharest, ROMANIA
|
Credits
| Roxana Nita |
Cheil Centrade |
Group Creative Director |
| Adina Stanescu |
Cheil Centrade |
Group Creative Director |
| Ioana Zamfir |
Cheil Centrade |
Creative Director |
| Ileana Ghita |
Cheil Centrade |
Account Director |
| Mona Opran |
Cheil Centrade |
CEO |
| Monica Garbur |
Cheil Centrade |
Head of AV Production |
| Iulian Ionita |
Freelancer |
Editor |
| Paula Stan |
Cheil Centrade |
Head of Digital Development |
| Ioana Mischie |
Studioset Production |
Artistic Director |
| Sorin Baican |
Studioset Production |
Managing Director |
| Andrei Dutulescu |
Atelieru |
Managing Director |
| Monica Felea |
Bad Unicorn |
PR Director |
| Anca Spiridon |
Bad Unicorn |
PR Manager |
Write a short summary of what happens in the film
“Unquiet Voices” is a 40-minute film split in chapters, in which 7 real victims of domestic violence broke the silence and give voice, for the first time in 100 years, to abused characters in silent movies. The real-life stories brought to life in the movie display different types of abuse, from psychological, to economic, sexual and even attempted murder. The movies talk about physically assaulted women who are left breathless on the floor, or husbands and concubines who should be in jail, but are walking freely, broken families and children witnessing tragedies. The images from each movie chapter are taken from 7 different silent movies, then rearranged to fit the victim’s real story. The victim’s voice is overlapped to finally unsilence every violent scene.
Cultural / Context information for the jury
Every 30 seconds, a woman in Romania is the victim of some type of domestic violence. Romania based NGO ANAIS Association could give them the support in the form of shelter and psychological and legal counseling, but very few of these women gather the courage to talk about what’s happening to them and break the violent circle. In Romania, only 1% of victims of domestic violence victims ask for help because the society judges them harshly. When it comes to domestic violence, most Romanians have very biased points of view, such as “women are always looking for it” or “it’s her fault, she’s not obedient” etc. But that should not surprise us- this local situation has been nurtured globally as well. The world has a long history of closing its eyes to domestic violence. If you look at early cinematography, you can find that silent films have been normalizing abuse.
Explain how the work innovatively used the film medium.
Old silent movies have been hiding scenes of abuse under the mask of pure entertainment. With the loss of copyright of dozens of these silent movies on January 1st 2019, ANAIS wondered if they could be turned into a brand new cinematographic product, one that would educate and empower a new generation of women.
We found the solution, simply by giving these images a voice- a simple innovation that would twist the whole thing, giving it another meaning altogether.
This was the birth of “Unquiet Voices”, a 40-minute movie in which 7 victims of domestic violence broke the silence and gave voice to abused characters in silent movies. We split the movie in 7 chapters, corresponding to 7 different silent movies. We matched the footage in each of the films with a victim's real story and then we rearranged the scenes to fit the victim’s narrative exactly.