The Quiet

a short animated student film
RELEASING ONLINE IN MAY 2022

“This universal parable introduced us to a truly personal, poetic narrative of the fragile but ever-changing dimensions of self-awareness.”

Drama International Short Film Festival

radheya jegatheva short film the quiet

Space, silence and siblings.

An astronaut ponders on the quietude of space and comes across a startling self-realisation. The truth is written in the stars, but what will he uncover?

The Quiet is being used for educational purposes as a part of the Croatian Film Association’s nonprofit platform Film EDUcation.

Film EDUcation is an interactive film education program for primary and secondary school students all over the Republic of Croatia, and helps to give students an incentive to engage in film.

“The main intention of the project is to encourage the balanced development of film literacy throughout Croatia and to develop a system which brings film art closer to schools, regardless of their geographical location. The project contributes to the development of young people’s competencies, with teachers being professionally trained in an area that is underrepresented, both in teaching and in the professional development program, thus becoming more competitive in the labor market and opening new opportunities for working with children and youth for themselves. So far, we received really positive feedback from the teachers and children who are already involved in the project.”

Source + more info

Left: Photo credit to Hrvatski filmski savez

Director’s Statement

I've always been fascinated by space. Ever since I was a child, I was always looking up at the night sky, which is very much an influence in this film. Of course, there is no sound in space. But by constructing this story set on Earth, I was able to take those everyday household sounds and tell it through the imagery of outer space by finding celestial counterparts.

‘The Quiet’ is about escapism, the imprisonment of the mind, and relationships with our siblings. It looks into silence and how that translates into loneliness, as well as the mental impact of solitary confinement, sensory deprivation and isolation. What could 'silence' mean to us at different points in our lives? How might a character's attitude towards silence change in a variety of different contexts? I wanted to explore the answers to these questions in an interesting portrayal of isolation.

Awards

 

  • Best Animation, Best International Film BFI Future Film Festival

  • Best Film
    Port Shorts Film Festival

  • Best Film
    WA Unlocked Film Festival

  • Best WA Short Film
    Cinefest Oz

  • Best Original Music
    Flickerfest (Academy® Qualifying & BAFTA Recognised)

  • Grand Prize (Best of Fest)
    Snowtown Film Festival

  • Best of Fest
    Capricorn Film Festival

  • Best Film (short)
    Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival


    144 awards and counting…

What People Are Saying

 

“This film has a lot to offer. The stunning visuals, the incredible sound design, the emotion in Jegathesan’s narration. It’s all fantastic. The BFI know a great film when they see it.”

★★★★★

— UK Film Review

FULL REVIEW HERE

“The talent that goes behind this type of storytelling is out of this world. ‘The Quiet‘ is made with such precise detail, it could easily qualify for the biggest awards in the industry.”

★★★★★

— into:screens

FULL REVIEW HERE

“This is a deeply emotive short, set in gorgeous visuals. It will draw hook you and splatter your feels across the Milky Way. Jegatheva is a master storyteller in the short form of film.”

★★★★★

— Eventalaide

FULL REVIEW HERE

“Part celestial meditation and part psychological thriller, this animation brilliantly blurs genre lines and emerges with something startlingly unique…”

— Evening Standard

More info

'The Quiet' is very loosely based on a 2016 short story by the director titled 'Silence' which was the overall winner of the Mundaring National Youth Section for the KSP Speculative Fiction Awards and a High Commendation for the 2016 Rees Prize for Young Writers under the auspices of The Fellowship of Australian Writers WA.

Animation Software/plugins used: After Effects, Element 3D, VC Orb, Superluminal Stardust, Animate, Procreate, Zbrush, Blender, Premiere. A mixture of 2D, 3D, hand-drawn and rotoscope animation techniques were used.

I want to thank the amazing people who assisted with translating the film into other languages for the captioning:
Karima Hoisan (Spanish)
Martina Zeiner (German)
Bruna Aquilar & Virginia Tobar (Portugese - Brazilian)
Penelope Parx (Italian)
Iono Allen & Andre Le Deist (French)

https://vimeo.com/693972890

 

Credits & Special Thanks

 

Writer, Director, Animator, Editor, Cinematographer, Sound Designer, and Original Music by:

RADHEYA JEGATHEVA

Narrator, Co-Writer, and Producer:

JAY JAY JEGATHESAN

Special thanks to:

RAHUL JEGATHEVA
My brother

MIRAE JANG
My mother

VIDEOCOPILOT
Thank you for plugins such as software plugin VC orb: https://www.videocopilot.net/orb/

VISIONARY FIRE
Great AE channel with helpful tutorials:
https://www.youtube.com/c/VisionaryFire

VIDEO REALM MEDIA
Bought & licensed space assets
* Videocopilot and Video Realm Media tools were bought and licensed to use.

Thank you to NASA for various space imagery (public domain/copyright free)


"Milky Way", "Saturn", "Saturn ring" and “Moon” textures by Solar System Scope is licensed under CC-BY 4.0
https://www.solarsystemscope.com/textures/

In loving memory of DR MARTIN KUMAR