“Lorna’s Silence” opens in the San Francisco Bay Area
July 29th, 2009Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s film “Lorna’s Silence” opens August 7 at Lumiere in San Francisco and the Shattuck in Berkeley and on August 21 at Aquarius Twin in Palo Alto. The film, winner of the Cannes International Film Festival’s Best Screenplay Award in 2008, shows the audience a perspective of hope in the face of depression through the story of a young, ambitious Albanian woman living in Belgium named Lorna (Arta Dobroshi) . Lorna has dreams of leaving her dreary job and setting up a snack bar with her boyfriend Sokol (Alban Ukaj). Unfortunately Lorna and Sokol need money and Belgium residential status in order to make their dream come true. Fabio (Fabrizio Rongione), an Italian taxi driver and an aspiring mob boss, hears of Lorna’s aspirations. Fabio knows a very wealthy Russian Mafioso named Andrei (Anton Yakovlev) who has a great deal of money but is also in need of Belgium residence papers in order to obtain an EU passport.
Fabio devises a scheme to get both Lorna and Andrei the Belgium papers. He finds Claudy (Jérémie Renier), a junky who is in desperate need for money, and who happens to be a Belgium citizen. Fabio sets up a false marriage between Lorna and Claudy allowing Lorna to get her Belgium citizenship. The plan is for her to divorce Claudy and marry Andrei in order to give him citizenship and a EU passport. However Fabio, impatient to move Lorna from the first marriage onto the next, decides to take matters into his own hands. In doing so he changes the plan to a much more sinister and bloody one and Lorna must decide whether to be safe and silent or be vocal and risk everything.
About the Filmmakers:
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne were born and raised in Seraing, near Liege. In 1975 they established the production company Dérives, where they made sixty documentary films before branching into narrative features. In 1994, they created Les Films du Fleuve, a company devoted to their narrative works. In 1996 the Dardenne brothers had a feature film breakthrough with the critically acclaimed release of LA PROMESSE (THE PROMISE). LA PROMESSE was followed by the 1999 critical smash ROSETTA, which won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or. The Dardennes won their second Palme d’Or in 2005 for there film L’ENFANT. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne belong to a rare group of filmmakers, including Bille August, Francis Ford Coppola and Emir Kusturica, who have won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or twice.
Check out more at the film’s offical site: