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Fremont, CA, USA - Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Blackmagic Design today announced that A Passage of Silence, an award winning Persian speaking short film, was shot using Blackmagic PYXIS 6K digital film camera with color grading and editing done using DaVinci Resolve Studio.
Founded by Bardia Samia, 1401 Films is a California based film production company that focuses on telling stories that have not been told, voicing the unheard and giving power to those ignored by mainstream storytelling.
A Passage of Silence is a new short film written and directed by Samia and produced by Emery Eckman. The film tells the story of a father, Karimi, working surveillance for an authoritarian regime whose loyalty is tested when his son needs help escaping regime agents.
The film takes place mostly in a monotone office complex and cubicle, mixed with scenes showing the panicked activity of his son in the streets. Capturing the feeling of a cold and uncaring regime and workplace had to be contrasted with showing an incredibly difficult and emotional exchange between father and son.
Samia explained his vision: “The film needed to show a feeling of the office spaces as barren, cold, and unfeeling towards their workers. The only glimmer of humanity exists outside the office, in the chanting of the people and in the relationships Karimi has with his family.
“We played a lot with angles in order to create a real, tangible sense of tension for the audience. Despite the set being small, we were able to create multiple spaces within the cubicles by facing the camera in different directions.”
“When Karimi is working or on the phone with dispatch, the camera faces outward toward the office. The movement of workers and the depth remind us of the regime’s domineering power. This is in stark contrast to the intimacy created when Karimi is talking with his son,” Samia continued. “The PYXIS was great to use in the cubicle. Despite the tight space, the camera’s full frame and size really helped us achieve wide shots while being tight on the actor.”
Using PYXIS 6K as the main camera for the film, Samia relied on the camera’s full frame sensor to capture crisp images. They also took advantage of the camera’s ability to shoot open gate in Blackmagic RAW, which gave even more creative options in post production.
Additionally, Samia relied on the camera’s easy to use menus and easy to rig design. “As a director who was also the operating DP on set, the intuitive menus of the PYXIS made the camera invisible. It helped me focus on the actors while being able to trust the camera was getting what I needed it to. And it helped me make setup changes run more smoothly and allowed us to get all of our shots done within the limited window we were given to shoot on location.”
Editing was done by Samia, who then sent edited scenes to freelancers who also used DaVinci Resolve Studio for visual effects (VFX), audio and color correction. The full team was able to stay in a Blackmagic workflow from camera through post production in DaVinci Resolve.
Samia explained the benefits: “We were really happy with what we got in camera, but going through the whole film in Resolve with our colorist really helped us finetune everything. We worked with our colorist to even out skin tones throughout the whole film and it was great how much control we had over every pixel of the image. We polished things we didn’t know we could polish, from the color of the walls down to the exact color of the tea.”
Press Photography
Product photos of PYXIS 6K, DaVinci Resolve Studio and all other Blackmagic Design products are available at www.blackmagicdesign.com/media/images
About Blackmagic Design
Blackmagic Design creates the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, color correctors, video converters, video monitoring, routers, live production switchers, disk recorders, waveform monitors and real time film scanners for the feature film, post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic Design’s DeckLink capture cards launched a revolution in quality and affordability in post production, while the company’s Emmy™ award winning DaVinci color correction products have dominated the television and film industry since 1984. Blackmagic Design continues ground breaking innovations including 6G-SDI and 12G-SDI products and stereoscopic 3D and Ultra HD workflows. Founded by world leading post production editors and engineers, Blackmagic Design has offices in the USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and Australia. For more information, please go to www.blackmagicdesign.com
