“Silence”
"Silence" ("Silencio"), the first series created by director and screenwriter Eduardo Casanova and produced by Gamera Studios in co-production with Apoyo Positivo and Antonio Abeledo SL., will have its international premiere at the 78th Locarno Film Festival.
The series unfolds in two timelines: the Europe devastated by the Black Plague and 1980s Spain amid the AIDS crisis. "Silence" tells the story of a family of vampire sisters struggling to survive the scarcity of “clean human blood,” while also confronting social silence and stigma around illness, sexuality, and identity.
The cast includes Leticia Dolera, María Leon, Ana Polvorosa, Omar Ayuso, Lucía Díez and Ana Polvorosa, who bring authenticity and depth to this tragicomic exploration of fear, rejection, and survival.
Casanova said: “I’ve always been struck by the way people referred to the first AIDS patients back when the disease was still deadly: The Pink Plague. I think The Pink Plague could define all of my work, from my very first short film to this latest miniseries. ‘Silence’ explores the myth of vampires as a metaphor to reflect on stigmatization and social condemnation through two pandemics: the Black Death and AIDS. Although separated in time and marked by significant social differences, they share a common thread, fear and rejection. And characters like female vampires, whose longevity allows them to live through both eras, bring these recurring conflicts to light, exposing that persistent, shared denominator.”
The series is composed of three episodes that invite viewers to question social norms, freedom, and survival. A tragicomedy that reinvents the vampire myth to explore how silence, around illness, sexual orientation, or identity, can become a poison that destroys not only individuals, but society as a whole. As a metaphor, vampirism is used to reflect on the stigmatization of HIV/AIDS and its parallels with historical pandemics, exploring themes such as the invisibility of HIV-positive women and the difficulty of loving across social boundaries.