Silent Truths is a short, experimental film using poetic language, rhythmic dance, sound and imagery to comment on the effects of colonialism. Shot on both Super 8 film and digital, it subtly shows the contrasts between old and new, while simultaneously drawing attention to the similarities that linger between now and the past. The persona describes the mental growth that comes with post colonialism, specifically within the Caribbean.
The film was largely inspired by reading a book by Jamaican-British Cultural theorist and philosopher Stuart Hall entitled Familiar Stranger, which struck me in a number of ways, but mainly drew me to recognise the toxic behaviors and ways of thinking that are normalised in the Caribbean, and the phycological implications regarding it, which colonialism had a major part in creating. The mentality Hall described having grown up around in Jamaica was eerily similar to norms I was familiar with and had even internalised having grown up in Trinidad some 70 years later. I began digging deeper into the destructive effects of colonialism, and the way it manages to linger and manifest itself into the root of the post colonial Caribbean, today.
The film ended up having more of a personal perspective than had originally planned, but speaking in a way that highlights the history and relates to different people who may feel the same way as described in the film. I tried to create an image where the persona recognises these toxic colonial traits around and inside her, and finds a way to distance herself and who she is from these ideologies that she has inherited, which have managed to consume her without her consent. The idea is to grow out of these oppressive internal structures, recognise their existence and actively work to abolish them. Essentially, to decolonize one's mind.
