The independent production follows two versions of a love story - one situated at the turn of the 20th century, and a parallel one in the 1990s - between a deaf woman and her boyfriend. The characters Malindy/Malaika and Arthur/Nico endure the difficulties inherent to intimacy despite different languages, and the one caused by financial survival.


Silence is prevalent through the film which, despite its atypical narration, stays transgenerationally coherent by the interpretation of the different-time characters by the same actors. Based on a 1906 poem, by Paul Laurence Dunbar, intraracial divergences are shared and overcome by the love story intended to be eternal, and evocating an underreported african-american past.

  • Duration: 95
  • Production year: 1999
  • Country: United States of America
  • Subtitles: EN, Subtitles: PT

Independent Spirit Awards 2000 - Nominated for Best Feature Film
Sundance Film Festival 2000 - Nominated for the Grand Jury Award

Zeinabu Irene Davis

Credits