Where the Silence is Heard
Gabriela Pena and Picho García’s deeply personal documentary delves into what isn’t expressed—the silences, unspoken fears, and absences that shape both Pena’s family history and her relationship with her mother. At the film’s outset, Pena moves to Valparaíso, the Chilean port city her family was forced from decades earlier amid the Pinochet regime. While reconnecting with her grandparents, the filmmaker takes on the formidable project of renovating the now-dilapidated house her family left behind. As she strips the former home to its core, Pena also digs into her relationship with her mother and how the physical distance between them could actually be a means of getting closer. Beautifully lensed and rivered by personal memories and archival footage, this achingly intimate family portrait explores how intergenerational trauma shapes how we love, all as one woman attempts to find peace before a new generation joins the story. —Kate Bove
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