Broken Silence is a film by Swiss director that was first theatrically released in 1996 in Germany.

Plot

The Carthusian monk Fried Adelphi has spent 25 years in the Swiss charterhouse La Valsainte, keeping his vow of silence and meditation, when his prior instructs him to go and seek the owner of their monastery, in order to extend an expiring 100-year lease. The owner is a vulcanologist; she now lives a secluded life in the mountains of Indonesia. Released from his vow of silence, Fried starts his journey and experiences the culture shock to be expected already in the plane: he loses his wallet, which his seat neighbor, Ashaela, an African American drummer from New York, silently takes. Suffering from claustrophobia, Fried leaves the plane at the Delhi stopover, to continue his travel by sea, but now he has no money. Ashaela offers him a ride to town. Thus begins a journey that will take them both to various parts of India and to Indonesia.