It is 1979 in a beautiful Pakistani village. Ayesha, a single mother, wants the best for her son Saleem, a handsome young man with a luminous and lively girlfriend, Zubeida. But General Zia declares martial law and Islamic fundamentalists come to town, sweeping Saleem up in the revolutionary fervor. Ayesha's liberal, humanistic values are challenged when a group of Sikh pilgrims visit the town, bringing back memories of her own troubled youth. Meanwhile, Zubeida's own yearnings for liberation compel Saleem to break off the relationship. As Saleem's zeal grows, Ayesha's sadness and isolation increase. The thuggishness of the fundamentalists shifts from contempt to harassment, and as Ayesha's haunting memories of her secret past flood her consciousness, Pakistan's history and modern reality show distinct signs of sharing the same violent destiny. Nonetheless, a moving moment of cross-generational women's solidarity in the face of tragedy gives a glimmer of hope for the future. Silent Waters, shot on location, is a visually sumptuous window into the complexity of Pakistani life, in which families are wrecked and women oppressed. Director Sabiha Sumar's gritty film, winner of the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival, has perceptively captured innocence subsumed and reshaped by raw power.