Reflective Encounters

“Centred around the fall of the Berlin wall, Shtum tells a singular story of the continued feelings of collective family shame and the unpleasant silence that surrounds it. Theil uses the well-trodden diary style of biographical filmmaking by combining stop-motion, collage and digitally drawn elements together to lend her film both a sense of being grounded in reality as well as creating a fluid, emotive language that allows her to express her feelings both at the time of the incident and now.

Using her own narration throughout, she reveals layers of her experience growing up in Berlin at the time of the Berlin Wall falling, how the freedoms it offered were first revolutionary to her as a young person, then radically altered by her own personal ties to the issues and crimes of the past. The use of flipping through pages allows Theil to episodically take us through the years, revealing just how impactful the effect of the incident at the centre of the film was on her and the recurring ramifications it has had throughout her life to this day. The film is an honest portrait of Theil’s own emotions as well as those felt through the collective zeitgeist of a city with a historically tumultuous past.”

— Laura-Beth Cowley