SILENCE

Martin Scorsese’s Silence, the Academy Award winning director’s long anticipated film about faith and religion, tells the story of two 17th century Portuguese missionaries who undertake a perilous journey to Japan to search for their missing mentor, Father Christavao Ferreira, and to spread the gospel of Christianity. Scorsese directs Silence from a screenplay he wrote with Jay Cocks. The film, based on Shusaku Endo’s 1966 award-winning novel, examines the spiritual and religious question of God’s silence in the face of human suffering.
Silence stars Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider Man, Hacksaw Ridge), Adam Driver (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Paterson) and Liam Neeson (Schindler’s List, Taken). The film follows the young missionaries, Father Sebastian Rodrigues (Garfield) and Father Francisco Garupe (Driver) as they search for their missing teacher and men-tor and minister to the Christian villagers they encounter who are forced to worship in secret. At that time in Japan, feudal lords and ruling Samurai were determined to eradi-cate Christianity in their midst; Christians were persecuted and tortured, forced to apos-tatize, that is, renounce their faith or face a prolonged and agonizing death.