Pakistan, 1979; Saleem is an aimless youth in love with local beauty Zubeida and adored by his widowed mother Ayesha. Life seems to flow in measured bucolic beauty, but old and new traumas loom because of a pair of fundamentalist Muslim insurgents staying in the village. Their zealotry ignites a macho spark in Saleem and soon he is rejecting his mother, because of her Sufi philosophy, and Zubeida, for seeing him outside of wedlock. Silent Waters gradually evolves from a dreamy portrait of rural life (replete with Bollywoodesque wedding merriment) to a brutal history lesson. Activist director Sabiha Sumar lets the story speak for itself, making this film both a moving, sociologically fascinating drama and a harrowing indictment of gender-based oppression.