ABSTRACT
Khamosh Pani examines the gendered nature of violence between religious communities during the chaotic violence of 1947, when British India was partitioned into the nation-states of India and Pakistan. Drawing on scholarship suggesting that films help to create as well as consolidate social constructs about communities and events, my analysis challenges Khamosh Pani's lack of context and relocates the cinematic narrative at the intersection of regional and international politics. Winner of the 2003 Golden Leopard, as well as recipient of four other awards at the prestigious Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, including Best Actress and Best Film, Khamosh Pani is a Pakistani-French-German coproduction created under the direction of a Pakistani, Sabiha Sumar. Nationalist struggles generate extreme violence. In South Asia, communal carnage in India as well as violence against minorities in Pakistan reveals the extent to which communities attacking each other have an unequal power base.
