They say that silence is golden, but there are instances when it can also be a powerful link. The official trailer for Focus Features’ forthcoming movie The Silent Twins has been made public. The movie, featuring Letitia Wright from Black Panther, demonstrates how silence (or nearly silence) is a potent form of communication. This September, the movie will be released in the US after making its world premiere at Cannes.
Is “The Silent Twins” based on a true story?
“The Silent Twins” is based on a true story. June (Wright) and Jennifer (Tamara Lawrance), two twin sisters, are first seen in the trailer. The girls don’t interact with anybody around them and appear to be rather walled off from others. The sisters then appear in a brief sequence of images, always at each other’s sides and coping with some bullying at school.
The sisters, who are now older yet are being told they must separate from one another, are accompanied by a menacing musical track as the trailer goes on. A title card stating that “silence was their link” emerges after getting an order for institutionalization, and the music changes tempo as the video immerses viewers in the sisters’ creative worlds to underline the importance of that bond. It is explained in a second title card how “imagination set them free.”
The Silent Twins, based on a true event, follows June and Jennifer Gibbons, identical twins who were raised by the sole Black family in their Wales village. The couple, known as “the silent twins,” created their own language as a result of only speaking to one another.
The two gradually drift apart and pass into catatonia. By creating “a rich, interesting universe to escape the realities of their own life,” June and Jennifer were able to cope. The movie takes place “after a rampage of vandalism inspired by an American boy they both admire, when the sisters, now teens, are committed to Broadmoor, a notorious mental institution, where they confront the decision to separate and survive or die together,” according to the official synopsis.
The Silent Twins also stars Jodhi May, Michael Smiley, Nadine Marshall, Treva Etienne, Declan Joyce, Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn, and Kinga Preis in addition to Wright and Lawrance. Andrea Seigel (Laggies), who also wrote the script, based it on the same-titled novel by Marjorie Wallace. The film’s director is The Lure’s Agnieszka Smoczyska. Executive producers include Wright, Siegel, Wallace, Ewa Puszczyska, Alicia Van Couvering, Charlie Morrison, Jake Carter, Trevor Groth, and Katie Anderson. Producers include Joshua Horsfield, Ben Pugh, Anita Gou, and Klaudia Mieja-Rostworowska.
On September 16, The Silent Twins debuts in cinemas.