Beyond Silence is about a family and a young girl’s coming of age story. This German film looks into the lives of the deaf and at a story about the love for music. A girl who has always had to translate speech into sign language for her deaf parents yet when her love for playing music grows strong she must decide to continue doing something she cannot share with her parents.
Acting
Deaf actors Seago and Laborit bring devastating authenticity
Direction
Link's sound design makes silence viscerally cinematic
Score
Clarinet performances that speak when words fail
Director
Caroline Link
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director Caroline Link cast deaf actors Emmanuelle Laborit and Howie Seago after extensive community outreach, making this one of 1990s European cinema's most authentic disability representations.
The film's German title 'Jenseits der Stille' literally means 'Beyond the Silence,' but Link has noted she preferred the English translation for capturing the paradox of a musical world her deaf characters inhabit without accessing.
DE
