Voices from the Silence (Voci dal Silenzio)

53 min, Italy, 2018 – Italian with English Subtitles

Soon after the first shot of an old man walking up hill towards an ancient tower, ruins in a valley occupied and restored by a handful of modern-day Italian hermits, you know this is no ordinary documentary but the possibility of communion with our divine self. These voices of the silence do not speak unless they have something worthwhile to say; their communication with us thus becomes an act of love.

Some of the hermits are beautiful (Catholic) monks and nuns, but there are others including an old hippie, an artist, even an Italian Hindu Sadhu in orange who prays to the little spring as if he were in Benares on the bank of Mother Ganga. Their faces and their voices are likely to remain with you long after the film ends:

“I lost everything—girlfriend, house, friends, because I was beginning to see life from a different perspective.”

“”I heard the stones calling me, inviting me back..[The stones said to me:] ‘Life is neither explained nor subdued. Life is accepted, lived, told.”

“We can be a vehicle for beautiful things. A flower speaks to everyone because it’s beautiful, and it’s beautiful because it speaks to everyone.. a communication without words.”

On Solitude vs Isolation: “The journey into silence of solitude is not an escape from reality. It’s a re-entering into the heart.. Solitude is the place of your gestation into manhood. If you don’t enter into solitude, into silence, into questioning your desire.. which is the nostalgia of infinity, you risk becoming a person constructed by others. After all, unhappy!”

“A few years ago a resort for tourists was built nearby. Loud music.. What helped me overcome was the valley itself. The mountain does not throw stones at a car that’s blaring loud music. There’s a sense of ‘Let it be.’”

“Between one word and another, there’s a pause,” says the orange-clad sadhu, pausing to let a tendril of incense smoke float pass in peace, “That’s where it blooms, permanently. It’s like entering a permanent spring in which this Supreme Identity is always in bloom. You always hear t gushing. It runs through you and at the same time it gushes from your heart.” (Alice Skinhead)

Directors: Alessandro Seidita & Joshua Wahlen