Hotel Silence

“I love the way the Icelandic author Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir treats a serious subject with modesty and humanity. The title of the novel Ör in Icelandic means ‘scars’. I adapted her novel and developed Hôtel Silence from it. By drawing a parallel between the scars of a man and those of a community traumatized by war, the film highlights the work of reconstruction; reconstruction of oneself, but also that of a people. I also find themes of Ólafsdóttir’s works in my own films: topics like exile, childhood, women (their suffering and their strength), the precarious balance in which the characters find themselves, far from their bearings, the need they have to move, transform. The passage from solitary to solidarity, from individual to collective, challenges me as a filmmaker and seems to me, today more than ever, widespread. In a time of ever more wars, creating suffering and destruction, Hôtel Silence is a universal story about courage and resilience.”

Léa Pool