Filmmaker Marnie Blok On Tackling Holland’s #MeToo Movement & Sexual Assault Awareness In Short Film ‘Beyond Silence’; “Silence Can Feel Safe In The Beginning, But It Robs You Of Your Voice”

Marnie Block realized that working through her own trauma could potentially help others in need. A victim of sexual assault herself, the Dutch actor turned writer-director used her experience as a tool for inspiration in her debut short film Beyond Silence. The film follows Eva (Henrianne Jansen), a deaf PhD student, who, after being sexually assaulted by a trusted male professor, seeks advice from an older female academic advisor (Tamar van den Dop) about reporting the incident. However, due to her own hang-ups and past experiences with sexual assault, the academic advisor realizes she might not be the right person for the job. Eva, along with her sister (Sigrid ten Napel), who serves as her interpreter, must find the courage to seek justice. 

Below, Blok opens up about the success, challenges and heart behind telling such a complex story.

DEADLINE: Where did this idea for Beyond Silence come from?

MARNIE BLOK: I used to be an actress, and the very script I wrote while still an actress had the same theme. It was about rape, and it carried the theme of: “a happy life is the best revenge.” That film hasn’t been made until now because I didn’t know much about writing at the time, but I revisited the script a few years ago and did some research. I was shocked by some numbers because I learned that after #MeToo here in Holland, the reports on sexual abuse went up about 60%-70%, but the actual charges pressed went up by only 1%. So that reshaped my thinking completely, because I realized that many people are silenced by themselves or others. So, I thought that I could write a story about a happy life being the best revenge, but I need to do something first. I need to write something about breaking the silence and the costs of breaking the silence. 

Also, when #MeToo happened here, older women were irritated, and they weren’t [supportive] of younger women [and thought that they were playing into] victimhood. I thought that was so inappropriate because I thought people would finally start talking about their situations, and then they were being shut down again. When you’re raped, you are a victim. And I think that’s not a weakness, that’s a fact. Speaking about that makes you stronger. That’s why I also wanted to explore the dynamics of two generations in this film. 

DEADLINE: Why was working with the deaf community important for this story? 

BLOK: I love sign language. When I was in theater school, I had some lessons. I’ve forgotten everything about it now, but I was really mesmerized by Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God. There was never a reason for me as a writer to put that in the script, but I thought it was a very beautiful metaphor for not being heard. And then, when I decided that I wanted the younger woman, the student, to be deaf, I knew I could only do it if I could find someone who was actually deaf. 

I had to find someone and put up auditions. But before the auditions, I met Henrianne [Jansen] and spoke with her. I felt she could relate to the subject, but she knew nothing about acting. So, we spent time together, built trust and went from there. 

DEADLINE: You’ve been making the rounds and winning at the Savannah Film Festival, Palm Springs Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival. What do you think people are responding to? This is some tricky subject matter, so I can only imagine what conversations you’ve been a part of after screening. 

BLOK: We started in Tribeca – and I wasn’t aware that you could even win something – then we won, and that was amazing to me. Then we went to Palm Springs, where Henrianne received a special mention for her acting, with a beautiful quote from the jury. But because this festival has been everywhere and we don’t have the travel budget to go as much, a lot of people have found me online. One girl told me that if a deaf girl can find words, then I really need to find words as well. So, that’s a really wonderful takeaway from the movie. We’ve had some screenings here in Holland as well, and the conversations are many and intense, and that’s the bittersweet thing about this whole film. It’s wonderful that it resonates so much with people, but at the same time, it’s horrible that so many people can relate. 

DEADLINE: For the actor Sigrid ten Napel, who plays the sister and interpreter did she have to learn sign language, or did she already know? 

BLOK: No, she didn’t know. We asked someone from the deaf community to help because I really dove into that community to understand a lot – it’s much more complex than you think. Henrianne had someone she was working with who is a deaf sign language teacher as well; he is deaf. And so, we spoke with him, and he put all of Sigrid’s text into the script, and then she had to learn it all. 

That was tricky because Tamar van den Dop, who plays the older woman professor, she’s a beautiful actress. And one of the reasons why she’s so beautiful is because she only wants to act when she really feels it. So, she might twist a word here and there and then Sigird would say, “No, you can’t do that, because I only have signings from those words.” Then Tamar would say, “Yeah, but listen, you can’t just put me in this box.” So, I said, “We’ll figure it out in the editing.” [laughs]. Sigrid did a great job, 

DEADLINE: What was the most challenging aspect about writing and directing this project?

BLOK: This was 17 minutes of trying to put everything in there that I needed to. I just wrote a series that was nine episodes, and there’s a family ethos that spans 50 years. I thought that was easier than writing this short. Seriously, I mean, that was a puzzle. You had so many people, years and events. In the end, it was easier because I had all that time. But I loved writing this short. It was challenging because I had to be economical and strip down everything. So, I had to be precise on what I wanted to say, see and feel. I was working quite a bit on that script, and I had a producer who was really very good with everything as well.

Another challenging thing was the professor’s character; she’s been living in silence for 30 years. She can’t bring herself to help Eva [Jansen] because if she admitted what happened to her, she would have a breakdown. So, I was struggling to figure out how to show it without really showing it. How could I make the audience feel it? I wanted Eva to feel the courage to move on. 

DEADLINE: You mentioned the advisor and this secret she’s carrying. She’s not exactly willing to help Eva report her aggressor. How would you like us to read her? 

BLOK: She’s not helpful at all. On the contrary, I do think it’s less about willingness and more about not being able to. I think she’s pretty much caught off guard by Eva’s confession about this assault, because she’s not the person that you go to when you report crimes at the university. She’s merely somebody helping Eva with her studies. That’s why she starts saying, “I thought you came for your studies, but you said nothing about this.” And so, she wants to push her to the guy in charge of cases like this, but Eva doesn’t want to go there. So, when Eva pushes and pushes, the professor hardens and hardens because of her own trauma. But also, I don’t want to push the audience into what they should feel. It’s all about breaking down what it all means in the end.  

DEADLINE: The film doesn’t go into flashbacks or explicit imagery. It’s all through Eva’s descriptions of what is going on. Talk about that choice.  

BLOK: I had some male friends who asked me why I didn’t put flashbacks in as well. And I just didn’t want to. We didn’t need the images to feel what happened to Eva. I also decided I wanted it all to be in one room with real-time conversation. We don’t skip moments in time because I wanted the audience to be completely there all the time and see her struggle and doubt her thinking. When I started writing this, I forced myself to watch Irréversible, a movie about rape from Gaspar Noé. It’s told backwards, you see a very angry guy because his wife was raped, and he starts to pursue the perpetrator, and it tells the story backwards to the woman when she was raped. There was a graphic scene that was nine minutes long, and I always thought, “No, I’m not going to watch it. That’s aggression porn, and I don’t want to see it.” But then I forced myself to look at it when I started researching, and I saw that scene and thought, “OK, this is really good,” because, as horrible as it is, it’s effective. 

I realized that if you put it out there the way he did, it works. This is the horror you go through when you’re sexually assaulted, and it’s even worse than what you see. I changed my mind about that movie a lot, but I didn’t feel like I needed to include it. 

DEADLINE: What do you hope audiences consider when they watch this short film? 

BLOK: Well, for victims or survivors, I would say, I really hope they realize that it’s not their fault. Whatever their reaction has been, the guilt, the shame, it should not belong to them. They belong to the perpetrator. Silence can feel safe in the beginning, but in the end, it robs you of your voice, and your voice is a basic human right to participate. To people who are silenced by themselves or others, please find your people. Please talk with them and let them help you get out there again. For the rest of the world, I would say bystanders play a really decisive role because there’s so much complicity. I think you can make a difference.

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]