One of the themes of Docville this year is 'Focus on Finland'. The Finnish directors of these documentaries are inspired by the harsh living conditions in the far north of this country. 'Selling the silence' deals with the hard life in the village of Salla and its surroundings in Lapland near the Russian border.

The main problems in the region are depopulation and unemployment. The directors give us an insight in the different initiatives of people who want to boost the economy. There is a special focus on Jyrki Kuukkanen, an inhabitant who went bankrupt and wants to keep on making a living for his family. The different chapters show several initiatives, like tourism, the construction of a railway and other projects, used to boost the economy. Together with these initiatives the problems of the region, conflicting interests and the hard life in this cold and dark northern part of Finland become clear. More essentially the documentary gives us an image of the creativeness of people who want to survive on their own land, and it should be stated that the director largely succeeded in that.