Reka Valerik Silent Voice Documentary • 2020 • 51 mins

Khavaj fled Chechnya not because of legal, military, or civilian issues; he is an award-winning boxer and supports his family with the money he earns from fights.

After being tortured, he goes clandestinely to Belgium where he embarks on a path of hiding: persecuted at home and abroad, he must make himself disappear: discovered to be homosexual, there is no place for him in a country where homosexuals are denied existence except as sick people to be treated.

The path to refugee status involves constant movement; although he is in Belgium and therefore safe, there is a strong Chechen community in the country that could track him down.

Khavaj, like all others living his fate, cannot hear from his family, who could track him down, and he moreover has the brother who was the first to torture and reject him.

He will change his city and then his first and last name to permanently acquire the identity of a refugee, a new name and be free from being tracked down.

The only contact he has with his family are the voice messages he receives from his mother to which he cannot respond, not only for protection but also because due to torture Khavaj has lost his voice, his is considered psychogenic aphasia.

A rehabilitation course to recover his voice is planned even though the cause is not organic but psychological.

From his mother's messages asking him what he would do in the boxing gym for disgracing his brothers, it is understood that initially his mother does not know..

Brother Rouslan burned all your pictures says he no longer exists.

Later his mother tells him she has spoken to the mullah who says he can be cured if he does not go to the West where he would get worse.

Khavaj is always filmed with his back turned, on the bed, locked in the house, working out or walking, his face is never seen.

When the procedure is over he will have to build a new identity, but without a voice it is difficult.

All the boxing gyms in Belgium are Chechen, the danger of being traced looms; members of his family have asked for him in Antwerp, so he must move again.

He will have a list of Flemish names from which to choose.

The film references the metaphor of meteorites so small that they are not visible as long as they are outside the earth's atmosphere: like Khavaj's invisible existence until he is recognized by a new identity that is still faceless.

His mother tells him in her last message that she loves him even though he does not respond and that they are having financial problems without the earnings from his boxing matches and had to sell the medals; the war would have destroyed everything and the women are less free than before.

"You hear my messages but you don't answer; you disappeared without a greeting," his mother concludes...

There is no identity without recognition; there is no recognition without the right to speak; Khavaj flees without rights, and his acquired aphasia perfectly portrays his condition: he is a persecuted person; his condemned sexual identity forces him into a life of exile, a lonely, nocturnal life where there is no face or voice for those without identity. His daily routine is stalked from a distance along with what remains of his mangled voice and his attempt at recovery.

Valerik offers the small/big intimate glimpse of an invisible and silent man deprived of any dignity; paralyzed and dumbed down by the cruelty of a culture incapable of any human mercy.