Wall of Silence

Reality in Mozambique resembles an unreal nightmare: South Africa refuses to accept the autonomy and independence of this country. More often than not, children are the victims of this situation. Not because they are killed but because they are made into instruments of death. Children in Mozambique are abducted by the Contras and forced to act as murderers of their own people. Their traumatic experiences (abduction, torture, being trained to kill, flight or liberation) and the efforts of the Mozambique government to reintegrate them into society form the basis of this film.

Eva, a successful publicity executive, has weight problems. In spite of diets and starvation cures she is overcome frequently by attacks of compulsive eating so that all resolutions and efforts to reduce weight are of no avail. She becomes more and more frustrated. Her new boyfriend Thomas does his best to pep her up but it doesn't help her self esteem. Finally, after she ditches her date with Thomas because she can't find the right dress to wear, she flies into a rage and -in an act of self-liberation- throws her clothes and scale through a closed window.

19 months after the fall of the dictator Somoza, the Austrian film team travels across Nicaragua for seven weeks (from August 4th to September 20th, 1980) and gathers information, mostly from farmers, workers, market women and soldiers. We are shown life in the Fincas, the agricultural co-operatives, in a banana plantation of Standard Fruit, a private corporation, in the "Carlos Roberto Huembes Hospital" in La Esperanza which is run by Austrians. A report on Nicaragua of 1980 which discusses the dream of the murdered freedom fighter of Nicaragua, General C.A. Sandino and whether it has been realized and answers this question affirmativeley. In spite of the present and threatening difficulties, the film is optimistic.