Rogério Soares
2019 | 90 min

HOT DOCS 2019 | WORLD PREMIERE

Friday, April 26 | 5:15 PM | TIFF Bell Lightbox 3
Sunday, April 28 | 12:00 PM | TIFF Bell Lightbox 3
Friday, May 3 | 9:30 PM | TIFF Bell Lightbox 4

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A poetic journey alongside four women, River Silence is witness to the human and environmental cost of a large-scale development in Brazil’s Amazon basin.

Through the stories of Francinette, Tamakwera, Karliane and Raimunda, director Rogerio Soares demonstrates the incredible resilience of four women fighting oppression— the Belo Monte, a large-scale hydroelectric dam development planned with little regard for human needs. Facing homelessness, unemployment, crime-ridden neighbourhoods and the loss of their Indigenous ways of life, the women refuse to be victimized. All of their love and energy is devoted to their children and grandchildren, to hoping they will have a better future.

A modern-day David vs. Goliath story whose lyrical river scenes contrast with the bleakness of city life, River Silence is a stark reminder of the powerful instinct for human connection and survival, even when defeat would seem the inevitable outcome.