Synopsis

Irene's life, since birth, has been punctuated and governed by words: first there was silence, calm, an undefined space where everything was fluid and nameless. Then came the words: the right ones and the wrong ones, the ones that bring people together and the ones that separate them, the words of her mother's voice singing her a lullaby in Dutch and the harsh ones of arguments, the words of writing, which for Irene has always been a necessity, a proof of her existence. But the day her brother Giovanni falls ill, Irene stops writing. The illness marks the beginning of a long period in which words suddenly reveal themselves to her in all their impotence and inadequacy. While on the one hand, Giovanni's illness becomes a constant thought and his recovery the only goal to pursue, on the other, what worries her most are her relationships with her siblings and her mother. Irene finds herself grappling with a history of violence and family silence, and with a past that has left deep wounds in all of us that perhaps nothing will ever heal. We discover then that words encompass all the meanings of life: they can remain silent, or they can be a mute we wear to hide our absolute fragility from others, but they can also save us from who we have been to accompany our transformation over time.