A moving portrait of societal and religious discord that, despite its being set a quarter century ago, has resonance today. The forcefulness of its message makes it a rewarding cinematic experience. --Hollywood Reporter

Winner of the prestigious Golden Leopard, as well as Best Actress honors for Kiron Kher at the Locarno festival, this powerhouse film about a woman's plight among Islamic radicals SILENT WATERS is the most recent title in the HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH SELECTS series. First Run Features and Human Rights Watch launched a collaboration to bring films dealing with human rights issues to a wider audience. The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival division annually endorses selected First Run titles that shed light on human rights abuses throughout the world.

Set in 1979, in a Pakistan under President General Zia-ul-Haq's martial law, SILENT WATERS begins as a bucolic story about a woman and her son, complete with a wedding celebration worthy of any Bollywood film, and then transforms into an eloquent tale of identity and belonging, faith and radicalism, and love and loss.

Ayesha is a seemingly well-adjusted middle-aged widow whose life centers around her son Saleem, a gentle, dreamy 18 year old. However, as the country embarks on the road to Islamization, political events begin to change the complexion of the town's innocent daily life and of the relationships for those who live in it. Saleem and a few of the town's other young men are soon gripped by a religious fervors. Events escalate considerably when Sikh pilgrims from India pour into the village. When one pilgrim goes looking for his sister who was abducted in 1947, Ayesha's long and sheltered past is brought to light.