''The End of Silence'' is a 2005 Canadian romantic drama film, directed by

Anita Doron Anita Doron (born June 3, 1974) is a Hungarian-Canadian film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, author, and a 2010 TED Fellow. Doron is best known for her 2012 film adaptation of the 1996 novel '' The Lesser Blessed'', written b ...

."Director lauds Harmer". ''

Kingston Whig-Standard ''The Kingston Whig-Standard'' is a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. It is published five days a week, from Tuesday to Saturday. It publishes a mix of community, national and international news and is currently owned by Postmedia. It has ...

'', March 10, 2006. The film stars

Ekaterina Shchelkanova Ekaterina Nikolaievna Shchelkanova (russian: Екатерина Николаевна Щелканова, also spelled Chtchelkanova; born May 2, 1970) is a Russian ballerina, singer and actress from Leningrad, RSFSR, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Ru ...

as Darya, a Russian ballerina who decides to abandon her dance company after an argument with her director (Max Ratevosian) while on tour in Toronto; without money and with very little knowledge of English to communicate, she is preparing to return home to Russia on her own when she meets Eddie (John Tokatlidis), who becomes a love interest despite their communication barriers. The film also stars

Sarah Harmer Sarah Harmer (born November 12, 1970) is a Canadian singer, songwriter and environmental activist. Early life Born and raised in Burlington, Ontario, Harmer gained her first exposure to the musician's lifestyle as a teenager, when her older sist ...

as Nora, Eddie's ex-wife who also becomes a friend and employer to Darya.

Production

Doron stated that she was interested in making a film about communicating through and around silence, as well as in depicting a strong, healthy and supportive friendship between women rather than the more common filmic depiction of female friendships as competitive or duplicitous. She has also stated that she was influenced by the video diaries of

Jim Jarmusch James Robert Jarmusch (; born January 22, 1953) is an American film director and screenwriter. He has been a major proponent of independent cinema since the 1980s, directing films including '' Stranger Than Paradise'' (1984), '' Down by Law'' ( ...

.Guy Dixon
"Sarah Harmer's movie debut"
''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', June 2, 2006. The film was Harmer's first-ever acting role. Despite her renown as a musician, however, she did not contribute music to the film's soundtrack, as she and Doron agreed on the importance of maintaining a separation between Harmer's music and acting; however, her real-life friends Tanis Rideout,

Luther Wright Luther A. Wright Jr. (born September 22, 1971) is an American former professional basketball player, in the center position. Basketball career A native of Jersey City, New Jersey, Wright played high school ball for one season under coach Bob Hu ...

and

Chris Brown Christopher Maurice Brown (born May 5, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor. According to '' Billboard'', Brown is one of the most successful R&B singers of his generation, having often been referred to by many contempo ...

have small roles in the film as friends of Nora's. Harmer has also stated that she played Nora as a more repressed and uptight version of herself, rather than trying to create a character more dissimilar to herself.

Distribution

The film premiered in the

Borsos Competition The Borsos Competition is the main awards program for Canadian feature films screening at the annual Whistler Film Festival. Introduced for the first time in 2004, the juried competition presents six awards annually to honour films, actors, screenpl ...

program at the 2005 Whistler Film Festival. It was subsequently screened at the 2006 Canadian Filmmakers Festival, where it won the award for Best Feature Film.Chris Knight, "Good location comes with the territory". ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with M ...

'', June 27, 2006.

References

External links

* 2005 films 2005 drama films Canadian romantic drama films Canadian multilingual films English-language Canadian films 2000s English-language films 2000s Canadian films English-language drama films Films shot in Toronto Films set in Toronto 2000s Russian-language films {{2000s-Canada-film-stub