THE DRUNKENNESS OF SILENCE

Original French Title: L'IVRESSE DU SILENCE

Written and directed by: Aurélie Berthier
with the collaboration of Elodie Brillon

Production: Horya Films
In coproduction with Telessonne and with the participation of CNC.

Theme: Contemporary Questions / Health / Alcohol

Format: 1x52'

Synopsis: After slipping from alcohol as pleasure to alcohol as sickness, from drinking as losing inhibitions to a life propped up by alcohol, to the knocked out drunkenness of a life exclusively dedicated to alcohol; Luis, Thierry, Catherine, Françoise, David and others have chosen the hospital or the therapy group as the start point of their new lives. They tell of the intoxication of parties, drinking for comfort, forgetting by getting wasted, loss off control to end up falling into sleep; their tricks to never be short of a drink, buying a box of matches as the alibi for buying a bottle, chewing gum to cover your breath, lying to yourself and others, violence of words and actions. Then, finally, the moment of realising that " I can live differently and it depends on me alone", coming out of dependency of thought and words. At the bottom a problem of identity. The difficulty of managing the emotions that their hypersensibility renders destructive. A difficulty inside themselves, difficulty in living that they drag around with themselves until they either die of it or get out of it. Luis, Thierry, Catherine, Françoise, David and the others have tried to stop drinking. Slaves to the physical and psychological dependency of alcoholism, an illness which is little understood but widepread. They recount how they finally accepted the reality of their alcoholism in order to be able to reconstruct themselves. They recount how they accepted the help they needed. They recount how they finally found and affirmed a new equilibrium in their lives. Therapy of a community, of which this film aims to discover the objectives and the success: getting out of dependence through listening and speaking. A therapeutic process, leading to the surprising and inspiring transformation of "beings that are becoming", whose emotions we come to share.