Director: Juan Frausto.
Silent Shame is a feature film drama which develops over the course of twenty years, beginning in the mid-1980’s and ending in the present. Abel Cruz is a product of a traditional conservative Latino suburban household. Attempting to meet his parents’ cultural and religious expectations, he marries Virginia. In spite of a difficult relationship, they become parents by having Ulyssis. Four years into the marriage, Virginia learns that she has been infected with the newly discovered HIV virus and develops AIDS. The incident forces Virginia and Abel to confront the unavoidable reality- Abel has been living a secret life. He was meeting everyone’s expectations except his own as a homosexual man. Painfully, Virginia dies a year later. Before her death, she takes actions to assure that Abel will never interact with Ulyssis. Eighteen years later, key events from the past are revealed when Ulyssis finds his mother’s diaries. The discovery exposes many truths about his mother and prompts him to find out what happened to Abel. To his surprise, Abel is still alive. During confrontational meetings, Abel denies being his father and discloses that he has never been infected with the virus and therefore, could not have infected Virginia. Josefina, Ulyssis’ maternal grandmother, assures Ulyssis that Abel is his father and that he is responsible for his mother's extremely painful death. Ulyssis and Abel meet once again. Anxious to make sense of the past, Ulyssis hears Abel’s story which ultimately leads him to discover how his mother become infected. Ulyssis acts as the catalyst that enables events from the past to be told from both of his parents’ point of views; via flashbacks from his mother’s diaries and those described by demanding answers from his still living father.