The Silent Accomplice

Abstract

Silent Moments touched by water.

Set in rural and urban Britain, The Silent Accomplice is a story seen through the perspective of water that flows from a spring to the sea. This ever-present silent protagonist engages with people in often intimate moments in their lives, giving us an unusual and intimate snap shot of contemporary living. Episodic and peripatetic in construction, and poetically blending fiction and documentary, the narrative weaves its way in and out of specific people’s lives to reveal a Britain with hidden and unspoken disparities and aspirations.

Using simple and ritch visual and aural imagery, The Silent Accomplice embraces the notion of silence to drive a narrative that creates an unusual experiential journey. From the sublime to the mundane, the peaceful to the violent, we are presented with a view of contemporary British life not commonly seen.

The film was shot over a period of months with a very small, documentary sized, team shooting ‘dogme’-like in settings and locations across rural and urban northern Britain. The cast consists of ‘real’ people playing themselves in a fictionalised story, often in their own living and working situations without working to a written script. One of the exciting things about this project was the contributions made by the cast and the way we worked with them.