"Deafening Silence is a fusion of beauty and terror, observation and anger, roving visuals and intimate stories that are funny, contemplative, or horrific - a subjective, layered depiction of Burma under brutal military dictatorship. My first trip was legal, shooting video as a fake tour guide doing research. The next was on foot, under-cover with ethnic Karen guerrillas, to film internal exiles surviving in a free-fire jungle war zone.

"Colonial archival imagery and clips from YouTube are woven within this tapestry of fragments, often in ironic counterpoint, and always to pierce the chokehold of censorship. This is a living history of a country arrested in time, a hybrid documentary focusing on ethnic genocide but with constant poetic resonance and a rich multiplicity of references to history and popular culture."
- Hank Heifetz and Holly Fisher

"Deafening Silence is a fascinating amalgam of print and image, facts and daily life. I can#t tell you enough how filled with admiration I am at your gumption to take on such a project and artistry in carrying it off."
- Yvonne Rainer, choreographer & filmmaker

"... an amazing accomplishment ... hard for me to even imagine mustering the fortitude to go back to that material and spend the time and effort to make this new - and for me at least - truer film with it. ... thoroughly interwoven, slow to reveal its development and structure, insistently visual first, deeply complex in its political and moral questions and responses, and ultimately very satisfying. ... It will be hard as hell to get to an audience."
- Bill Brand, filmmaker

Filmmaker (directed, filmed, edited): Holly Fisher
Music: Mun Awng (Dennis Dawes) & others
With: Zarni, Naw May Oo, Saw Mg Hla, Moethee Zun, Min Zin, Dr. Vum Son Suantak, Vicki ArmourHileman, others from Burmese, Chin, Karen, Mon, Shan, Rohingya ethnic communities

Selected Screenings and Awards
Microscope Gallery with Re:Voir / The Film Gallery, Online (February 2021)
World Peace and Understanding Remi Award, WorldFest-Houston, Houston, TX (2015)
Featured Guest, Athens International Film and Video Festival, Athens, GA (2013)
The Environmental Film Festival, Washington, D.C. (2013)
Mass College of Art and Design, Boston, MA (January 2013)
UnionDocs, Brooklyn, NY (April 2013)