Bringing to light a subject that has been hushed for too long, “Still” will inevitably uncover wounds that were never healed.

This semester’s Biola film, “Still,” focuses on the darkness and difficultly in our lives and is a reminder of our own lack of understanding in how to cope with the curveballs of life that can seem so unbearable.

The film shows the destruction and despair pressed upon those who have experienced the stillbirth of a child and the heaviness that is laid upon their shoulders like a cloak they cannot rid themselves of.

But in the midst of the pressing sorrow, “Still” is a story of hope. It is a story of healing between a couple that has been dragged through a valley of grief and torment and the power of love in their marriage.

“The emotions that come from ‘Still’ is like kneading your emotional dough, making you feel something you never thought you could feel,” said co-producer Brandon Marx. “It gives you the emotions of going through a stillbirth without actually having to go through it.”

Illustrating the reality of mourning in it’s lack of dialog, the 14-minute film opens with a scene of the husband, Jamie, holding his breath underwater in a tub.  Both writer Kyle Gilbertson and director Felicia Heykoop felt strongly, for separate reasons, that this is the most memorable and powerful part of the story.

“What we talked about before, preparing for that scene and doing it together; I think it really really hit me right there,” Heykoop said. “And that was probably the hardest day on the set.”

“He just sits there for a long time and when I wrote it, that was the strongest scene in my head,” Gilbertson said. “That, I think, speaks to the whole idea of the film.”

That idea is, universally, the theme of grief and suffering. Though most people have not gone specifically through the torment of a stillbirth of their child, all can understand Jamie and wife Dessie’s desperate lack of hope, pain and seclusion.

“I connected with Jamie’s inability to change or fix what’s happening around him and his isolation and, most of all, his loneliness,” said main actor Ben Lepley. “That’s what’s at his core. It was a life-changing experience. Contributing to something like this is hard to explain. You have to be so raw and vulnerable with all these people, you can’t help but let it change you. I took myself through the anger and sadness of my character, but there is also a lot of joy and happiness with the crew. So it becomes this whirlwind of emotions in such a brief period of time that you can’t help but be a different person by the time it’s over.”

Taking place almost entirely in a single bathroom, Jamie and Dessie enter into a seemingly endless roller coaster ride of grief and take their first steps onto their road of recovery.

“There’s a certain sense of safety in a bathroom,” Gilbertson said. “It’s closed in so that no one can invade, kind of taking on this idea of the womb; a safe place where no one can touch you; where you don’t have to worry about anything.”

Although “Still” was been chosen as the Biola film for interterm 2010, Heykoop’s decision to direct this film was sparked by a much deeper passion.

“It wasn’t about me getting the credits so much as I felt really deeply convicted that this movie needed to be made.”

Not only is the film about the devastation of a couple, but about the difficulties and trials that are faced in every marriage.

“It was hard to see this kind of manifestation you are trying to achieve of something that is very real and very scary and has torn apart a lot of families,” she said.

Heykoop’s desire to communicate to the public about the unspeakable and hidden things in life became apparent in the work she put into directing “Still.”

“I wanted to do a film that delivered a dose of reality,” she said. “Marriage is really hard, and no one talks about that.”

Beyond the death of their baby, “Still” is ultimately a story of real life. In this world, there is sorrow, even when we pretend there isn’t. In this life there is difficulty in marriage, which we hate to admit. But when we cling to the ones we love, when we emerge from our hiding places and learn that we must trust someone with our inexpressible and silent pain, we can find our way out.

“Still” brings this all to reality.

“Still” will be premiering at Cinema Fusion in the Anaheim Garden Walk on Thursday, May 6 at 7 p.m.