‘Red Butterfly dream’ in India
Young filmmaker Priyantha Kaluarachchi’s maiden film ‘Rathu Samanala Hinayak’- ‘A Girl with Red Butterfly Dream’ has been selected to be screened at the All Lights India International Film Festival. The film will be screened at the Official Selection section at the festival held from September 24 to 27. The film has also been selected to represent Sri Lanka at the 17th Asiatica Film Festival in Rome. The festival starts this week.
Priyantha started his career producing documentaries for television and directed award winning stage plays. Priyantha directed the documentary about Tsunami caught train, ‘Peraliya’ and it got selected at the Berlinale Talent Campus at the 57th Berlin International film Festival in 2007. ‘Peraliya’ also got selected and short listed at the 15th edition of Cinerail International Festival in Paris in 2007.
Priyantha’s debut feature ‘Rathu Samanala Hinayak’ is set in the post war Sri Lanka. Samantha and Ajith lives in a flat close to Colombo. Ajith is a contract killer with connections to the underworld. Samantha is his friend. He gets occasional attacks of epilepsy. His uncle is a preacher at a shrine of gods. Samantha and Uncle hold an ancient script. It is said in the script that a treasure can be attained by sacrificing a virgin with four birthmarks lined in her neck. Samantha meets a young Tamil girl with four birth marks placed accordingly on her neck. Her name is Rajini. She comes to Colombo in search of her lost sister. Her sister has been a member of L.T.T.E. Even though there are four birthmarks on neck Samantha is doubtful of her virginity. Samantha goes against the sacrificing of Rajini for the treasure that does not reveal itself. Samantha goes insane and meets the Rajini’s sprit. He entangles himself in her sprit with love.
“At one point it struck me that there is something unsaid about this three decade long human catastrophe. I visualized this story in my mind for a long time. Few years after the war, there came a point where I felt as the ideal time to share my story. The fundamental challenge in telling this story was how to convey the message that only humanity could bridge the gap between the Sinhalese and the Tamils and that any other approach with a sectarian tag on it would be futile. In order to achieve that, I gave a deeply human twist to the narrative of the film” Priyantha noted describing about his first filmmaking attempt.
Before making ‘Rathu Samanala Hinayak’- Priyantha successfully completed the Film and Appreciation course held by Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) 2006 in Sri Lanka..
