Fourth Jaffna Film Festival in Sri Lanka

Independent Filmmaking

that expresses serious Issues

 By: Safaa ELaisy Haggag

 When one gets an invitation for a film festival anywhere, they are ready to learn closely about the city in which the festival is held, especially when they read that it is an area that witnessed a civil war that ended by 2009. Moreover, the festival is looking for peace and overcoming the conflicts through culture and cinema. This festival is held in Jaffna, the capital of the Northern region of Sri Lanka, which used to be known as Ceylon island. The director of the festival is ms. Anomaa Rajakaruna, and it is headed by Dr. Ragoram. The festival is sponsored, inter alias, by the British Cultural Center and the European Union. The guests were hosted in a retreat sort of hotel, The Thinai, and Thinai Organic, It overlooked corn fields. The island has a tropical environment, with an almost constant temperature, and rains all over the year. All the way of the train trip from the capital city Colombo to Jaffna one can see wide fields, with English style green cottages with tiled roofs. When I arrived to Jaffna, I saw women in Saris driving bicycles and motorcycles. Some of them were in attire similar to that of Egyptian working women: wide trousers with a modest upper vest. The tock-tocks had pleasant colors and are equipped with a calculator. The drivers of this means of transport that fits the inside transportation respect the passengers, unlike their Egyptian counterparts, By such description I try to give the readers a general profile of the place before I start to write about the Fourth Jaffna Film Festival. Seven long fiction movies, mostly from Sri Lanka and India, competed for the festival award. All of them are with a Tamil cultural background, thus, the festival is rather a regional not an international one with movies from all over the world. All of the seven movies dealt with major issues, in film styles that try to escape from the traditional Hollywood-like style, which is appreciated by Sri Lankan film viewers. I started by viewing the movie “Passages Of Life ”. It is a Japanese-Myanmar co-production, dealing with the crisis of an illegally migrating Borman family to seek employment in Japan. The father works in a restaurant and the mother works in clothes factory. They have two children. After living for a while in Japan, they are dismissed by the authorities. The mother selected departure, while the father decided to stay and struggle for a better life in Japan. The filmmaker’s style is rather a style of reality cinema, using free camera movements and leading the performers in way that makes them look like the real world people rather than actors and actresses. Two jury colleagues, the Indian actress Archana and the Sri Lankan critic Mauran had conflicting ideas about this movie, so, we excluded it from the potential candidates for the award. This happened as well with the Indian movie “The Lady of the Lake”, which progressed from documentary about the marshlands dwellers. The marshlands are in a wide river, where people suffer life difficulties and are chased by the local authorities. The filmmaker added a fantasy element, the ghost of a woman who appears to the poor fisherman who has an obsession of insecurity. This was a developmental addition by the filmmaker. This movie was excluded as well. 

The remaining movie to be discussed is “Self Exile”. We were impressed by its glamorous idea. It combined four stories of women who dedicated their lives to men. The titles of the stories are: the daughter, the sister, the friend and the wife. The filmmaker (Arnab Middya) gave the four parts to the same leading actress. Every part ends with a song according to the Indian style. It is a limited budget movie maneuvering through the Indian filmmaking elements in an attempt to escape from them, however, it still has a strong impact and its classic method of narration is dominating. It won a special mention by the Festival Jury. The movie “My Son is Gay” won a similar mention because it discussed the sex taboo and the freedom of choice of one’s sexual orientation. As it could be expected, this movie discussed the issue by mentioning a lot of scientific data in an attempt to send a message to the viewers to accept the differences in sexual orientation and to consider it as a genetic disorder. The style of the filmmaker ranged between a free style cinema that applies the rules of dogma and the star movies, thanks to the performance of the star who played the part of the mother, with a fixed camera till the end of her role performance. The director Lokesh Kumar is a decent man.

The Indian star Archana, who was our jury colleague, exclaimed if the director himself is gay, then said that she does not think so. This shows how can approaching such a taboo raise questions, even among the specialized persons, let alone the common viewers, who were mature and well educated so that they were able to view the movie that spoke their language. Some laughed in scenes that require sympathy not derision. So, in spite of its boldness, we gave it only a special mention. The movie that won the award was “An Orange Ship” by the director Noor Emran from Bangladesh. It is about a journey on board of a huge ship that combines: a coffin of a victim of a factory fire, the weeping husband of the victim who fears his young son’s reaction, a criminal businessman who set fire in the factory to get the insurance money, a complex character of a man who has several jobs, as he leads a group of circus players to amuse the passengers, as well as working as pimp who encourages a face-veiled whore to entertain some customers, a middle class family who travel in a rich class cabinet beside the businessman and a huge mass of poor persons on deck. The filmmaker cleverly led all of them and moved between their stories and characters. He succeeded to express the society as a whole through his orange colored ship. The body of the deceased woman rots, the businessman is abandoned by his crime collaborators and is under the threat of imprisonment, the middle class family lives its bourgeois rotten life, the multi-jobs quack is rather working in them to make a living. His work includes being a pimp and religious preacher when needed.

The director Noor Emran is Muslim in a muted-faith society, nevertheless, he did not feel embarrassed to criticize religious quacks through the character of this man, or through the risks of using the face veil to hide and commit sins. The filmmaker Arnab Middya used the face veil as well in his movie “Self Exile”, in the fourth story of the movie about an unemployed husband and a wife who accepts to work as a prostitute while she wears a face veil to hide, and her husband plays the role of an Arab husband when they ride a car together. Arnab Middya is Hindu while Noor Emran is Muslim, nonetheless, the two filmmakers criticize the common appearance of Muslims and narrate stories which are probably inspired by real stories. Back to “The Orange Ship”. Noor employed music and fine singing which is critical to reality. They include a song of a political significance, similar to Sheikh Imam and Negm’s songs,( Egyptian anti-government Musician) about the necessity of common tolerant co-life of Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and Muslims. Noor Emran marvelously led the performers. I spite of the fact that we aspired to view independent movies in the Forth Jaffna Film Festival, nonetheless, most movies were rather traditional, expressing key or even controversial issues in a realistic style. I could not view the short fiction competition movies because I, with the Indian and Sri Lankans colleagues, was a long fiction competition jury. However, according to the short fiction jury statement that was presented by the German filmmaker Carla Maria, they were of more ambitious artistic styles, as they were free from the obstacles that hinder the long fiction movies. The Egyptian short fiction “Like the Sun” by the director Hana Mahmoud participated in the short fiction competition. However, the jury found it in need of more adjustment of tempo and it needs to be shortened a little bit to be fit for award competition.

 The festival included a seminar about how women could overcome work difficulties in a male dominated industry. The women participants presented their experiences. I gave a historical introduction on Egyptian film-making that was established by three women, including Aziza Amir. I mentioned how Egyptians like movies, and how my father approved my free choice to join the film institute in Egypt. I told them how I worked as a film editor with the same payment as my male counterparts. This is unlike the case of Europe and America where there is a discrimination against women as regards the payment for the same jog, since men are paid more. The Young German Director Clara Maria agreed. The Indian and Sri Lankan women spoke about their individual efforts to make space for themselves. I ended my presentation by saying that women’s direction of film festivals or movies is regularly common place now. Egypt participated in Fourth Jaffna Film Festival competition by a short fiction and by my own participation in the long fiction movies competition Jury committee. We look forwards for cooperation between Egypt and Sri Lanka through the Egyptian embassy there. Sri Lanka people are serious people and they respect women and allow them their deserved status.

     Carla Safaa & Vasanthi

Jaffna Film Festival is organized by the social activist Anomaa Rajakaruna with assistance of Kanka, Vasanthi  and a group of volunteers, all of them were honored at the end of the festival.

Safaa Elaisy Haggag

Egyptian Film Critic

 Cairo- October 2018

Translation Of Arabic Article published in Weekly magazine Elqahira