Some of the strongest characters in Innocent Voices are women. What pattern of women’s representation, if any, can you find in Innocent Voices?

Are they active or passive; strong or weak; clever or stupid; dependent or independent?

Ask students to repeat the same process with the key male figures in the story. Is it fair to say that, apart from the soldiers, a lot of the men in Chava’s life are unreliable or comic?

Chava and the priest

The priest plays an important role in the film. At the start he is perhaps the one source of authority of sufficient strength to protect the people from the army, but his power is successively diminished as the film continues. Invite students to consider the priest’s role and how it contributes to Chava’s understanding, or otherwise, of what is going on around him.