Making Noise Quietly

The first story, BEING FRIENDS, is set at Oxen Hoath, Kent, in July 1944. Two young men meet by chance in a field and spend the afternoon together, as doodlebugs fly overhead. Oliver Bell (Luke Thompson) is a conscientious objector, spending the war working on a farm; Eric Faber (Matthew Tennyson) is a wandering artist and writer, uninhibited in his homosexuality. As they discuss the war and its morality, an intense bond forms.

The second story, LOST, is set in Redcar, Cleveland in June 1982. Geoffrey Church (Geoffrey Streatfeild), a young naval lieutenant, visits the home of May Appleton (Barbara Marten), and finds himself having to inform her that her son Ian has been killed in action in the Falklands war. The bereaved mother struggles with bitterness and love as she recollects her estranged son.

The third story, MAKING NOISE QUIETLY, is set in the Black Forest in August 1996. Helene Ensslin (Deborah Findlay), a German Jewish woman and concentration camp survivor, plays host to a brutish and fugitive British private, Alan Tadd (Trystan Gravelle), and his disturbed stepson, Sam (Orton O’Brien). Traumatized by his experiences in the Iraq War and abandoned by his wife, Alan expresses his anger and bitterness by beating Sam. The traumatized boy now communicates only with savage screeches. Helene tries to break their cycle of anger and abuse.