‘Gaadi’ gets North American release

Prasanna Vithanage’s newest film ‘Children Of The Sun’ (Gaadi) has been selected for the North American releases.

Indie distribution outfits Deaf Crocodile Films and Gratitude Films are combining forces to give limited theatrical releases this year to a pair of foreign-language titles.

Children Of The Sun (Gaadi) is a historical drama from Sri Lanka. Set in 1814 during the era of repressive British colonial rule in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the film depicts what happens after a collaborationist English agent convinces the local Sinhala Buddhist nobility to attempt to overthrow the rival Tamil king. The subsequent military disaster forces a Sinhala noble woman to choose between suicide and marriage to a low-caste outcast.

Prasanna Vithanage directed the movie, which is in the Sinhala language, and will be released with English subtitles.

Gaadi premiered on 8 October 2019 at the 24th Busan International Film Festival amidst stellar reviews. The film has been selected one of the 100 Asian films that audiences should watch by International Film Festival 2019.  In January 2020, the film won a Special Jury Award at 18th International Dhaka Film Festival.

It is co-produced as a Sri Lankan-Indian joint production by H.D. Premasiri, Sandya Salgado for Film Island, Prasanna Vithanage Productions and Alan McAlex and Ajay Rai for Mumbai-based Jar Pictures, an Indian motion picture production company. It stars Sajitha Anthony with debut actress Dinara Punchihewa in lead roles along with Shyam Fernando and Ravindra Randeniya.

Also receiving an American release will be Boomba Ride, the Indian feature from God On A Balcony director Biswajeet Bora. The film is a satire of India’s rural education system, following an eight-year old boy (newcomer Indrajit Pegu) who knows how to rig the game for him. The film is in the Assamese language, and will be released with English subtitles.

Both films will receive a cinema run in the fall, followed by a digital release through partner Grasshopper Films for TVOD and SVOD.

‘We’re thrilled to be releasing these two remarkable movies that demonstrate some of the phenomenal range and creativity in Indian and Sri Lankan filmmaking right now,’ said Deaf Crocodile Co-Founder and Head of Acquisitions and Distribution ‘Prasanna Vithanage’s Gaadi is such a lush and visually stunning portrait of political conflict, caste conflict and the clash of faiths in Sri Lanka’s history. Conversely, Biswajeet Bora’s Boomba Ride is a film about the smallest of subjects — a rural Indian school with one hilariously uncooperative eight-year old student — but it’s so beautifully observed and acted, with an authenticity that comes from Bora’s own Assamese background.’