“There is no art without activism,”
Visakesha Chandrasekaram
Award winning filmmaker, activists and human rights defender Visakesha Chandrasekaram says there is no art without activism. Visakesha who joined cinema as an assistant director immediately after his ordinary level examination and at the age of 17, says that he soon realised that if he continued “cinema would not pay his bills”.
“After working in the three movies I realised that this is not going to be a job that helps me pay my bills. So I went back to college and finished Advanced Level and got into the Colombo University law faculty,” says Visakesha who qualified as a legal practitioner and now has come back to filmmaking. Having won both foreign and local accolades for his maiden movie ‘Sayapethi Kusuma’ (Frangipani), Visakesha is ready with his second direction ‘Paangshu’ (Earth) which is to be realised this week.
Having realised the bitter reality of becoming a filmmaker, Visakesha got back to his school, Royal College Colombo passed his Advanced Level and was selected to the law faculty of the Colombo University from where he graduated in law. Having completed his law degree Visakesha became a human rights lawyer defending ethnic Tamil political prisoners who were held in prolonging detention under the draconian counter-terrorism laws. He worked in Sri Lanka as a human rights lawyer and as a consultant for the New South Wales (NSW) Government in Australia. Continuing his law education, he received a doctorate from the Australian National University for his research on the use of confessionary evidence under counter-terrorism laws. He now works as a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Colombo.
Having being qualified both a practitioner and academic in law, Visakesha returned to his favourite medium cinema realising the importance of this medium which goes beyond mere a mode of entertainment. Visa (as he is fondly called by his friends and fans) made his debut ‘Sayapethi Kusuma’ (Frangipani) to voice the rights of the LGBT community. The film was officially selected for more than 25 international film festivals winning several awards including the Best Foreign Film at 2015 Rio LGBT Film Festival and Dr Lester James Peris Award at 2016 Sarasaviya Film Festival.
His second film ‘Paangshu’ (Earth) is yet another powerful story about socially, politically and psychologically sensitive issue of ‘enforced disappearances’, a problem experienced by both the North and the South during the JVP youth uprising and the ethnic war.
“I am of the strong view that post-war reconciliation could not be facilitated ignoring the crimes occurred during the JVP insurgency. Inclusion of the Sinhalese insurgency in the reconciliation discourse is necessary to generate an empathic response in the Sinhala audience, since the current post war reconciliation efforts are largely embargoed by the Sinhala nationalists claims against granting justice to the Tamil victims of war. Tamil people also should be prepared to acknowledge the brutal violence unleashed by the Tamil terrorist against other Tamils who disobeyed the brutal authority of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,’ says Visa expressing the rationale of the choice of the story of his second feature film.
Having walked a long way from being a budding assistant director to an award winning filmmaker, Visa narrated his journey and shared his views about society, cinema and its future. “After passing out as an attorney, I practiced as a human rights lawyer for about four years in Sri Lanka. Then went to Australia and started working in the community legal service sector for about four years. Then I joined the New South Wales government and worked as a public servant in the government department for about 11 years. Thereafter I decided that it was enough and I wanted to come back to Sri Lanka. Being a 17-year-old assistant director to professional filmmaker, Visa did a number of other projects like three stage plays, two fictions and two music albums.
“Everything ended up in 2013 and then I went back to Australia and continued working in professional capacity and then in 2017 I started working on ‘Paangshu’,” he said.
When I was doing ‘Frangipani’ there were lot of festival-screenings, discussions happening and also my film was screened in almost all the Sinhala speaking universities. That means we were able to engage with the university students, show the movie and engage in a discussion. Sometimes when it comes to political themes the movie itself is not going to help to find answers to the kind of questions that come out of movies. Sometimes we need to have a discussion. And we need to show that there is a segment of the population willing to talk about it and willing to defend the theme that we are presenting,” explain Visa.
“In the case of ‘Frangipani’ it was the rights of LGBT people and right to love and right to democracy that how we saw it. Now when it comes to ‘Paangshu’ it is about enforced disappearance and seeking justice for people whose family members were disappeared and the dysfunctionality of the legal system and finding ways to reconcile,”.
Asked whether according to him does art stands only for the arts sake, Visa holds a different view. “I think I see myself as an artiste and activist or art activist. What I am doing is using art for certain purposes and to create discussion and engage with the people about certain practice or unjust practices. So ‘Paangshu’ is one of that. I am hoping to engage in a constructive and lengthy discussion with the audience and people about the content and issues related to enforced disappearance and issues about the justice system here”.
“Personally I don’t see arts without activism. That’s why I am engaging in it, having said that there could be other people who are doing arts for other purposes. But I think whatever the purpose most important thing is that should happen is art should go beyond mere entertainment, there should be enlightenment in arts. So yes we can entertain people and entertainment will not lead to anything other than just giving them a smile. But I think we need to somehow contribute to enlighten the masses,”.
“In my case I think what I am talking about is democratic rights of expression and being able to tolerate others and being open minded about different artistic concepts and so forth. So I think that is the purpose of art and it is entertainment and also enlightening. For me it has to go beyond that and it has to contribute to resolving number of issues that we are experiencing in this country. It is one of the most important responsibilities of artistes also the responsibility of others. We should be able to get the country out of the miserable state of affairs we are now in,” Visa explains in depth.
Asked about risky business of movie making Visakesha is of the opinion that in Sri Lanka movies industry is existing purely for the passion of it. “movie industry has changed and the whole social fabric has been changed. So making a movie is always a risk disregard of art house or not. And I have seen so many movies which we put in the category of commercial failing one after the other. Then of course some art house movies are finding success. Yes it is a risk. There is no support or funding from the government or any other system we find in developed countries,”.
“I have a feeling that the mere reason that the film industry is existing in Sri Lanka is the passion. A very little part of it is commercial reasons. So if we close the film industry tomorrow it won’t affect the economy or even the fabric of the society directly. I think it is definitely a risk and but we are taking that risk because of the passion. Personally I have seen the strength of this medium to engage in a political discussion and I have experienced the way how we could maximise the exposure of LGBT issues through film ‘Frangipani’. I actually believe in that capacity of the film art and so I take the risk,” he said.