Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage says making ‘Paradise’ was “like holding a mirror to myself and my country”

Filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage says making Paradise was like holding a mirror to myself and country

Even while basking in the glory of the Kim Jiseok Award for the best film at the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) for Paradise, Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage is already planning his next two films. Over a video call, the director, talks about Paradise, his new projects and his approach to cinema. Edited excerpts from the interview.

Paradise, which was screened as part of the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, is about a Malayali couple, Amritha, a blogger, and Keshav, a content creator, from Mumbai who travel to Sri Lanka for their fifth wedding anniversary. An unexpected incident plunges the tourists into the cauldron of economic desperation, linguistic and racial divisions. The crisis exposes the faultlines in their relationship.

Calling the film an act of resilience from a cash-strapped country, he says the movie helps him explore contemporary politics and the socio-economic situation in Sri Lanka. “It was also an act of self-discovery, as a man and a husband. It was like a two-edged sword. It was interesting for me to work on these two (aspects) – to explore what is happening and to expose your mindset.”

Inspired by Indian cinema, Prasanna wanted to make one in an Indian language. “Then this story came to my mind. The film is not shot in India but the characters come from India to Sri Lanka against the backdrop of the economic catastrophe. I have been inquisitive about the Ramayana tour and I have been thinking over the years about some Indian characters on the Ramayana tour. Now, all this came to one basket — the Ramayana tour and the economics and the Indian characters.”

Prasanna maintains that “this dramatic premise gave me a chance to look into myself, about my relationship; it was like holding a mirror to myself and my country.”

For Amrita (Darshana Rajendran) and Keshav (Roshan Mathew), the journey becomes the means to discover themselves against the backdrop of the economic recession in Sri Lanka. While peeling away the layers of social and economic injustice that have beset the country, the director also zooms into the relationship of the couple, when the personal becomes the political and vice-versa.

The multi-layered movie is also multi-lingual although the original script, including the dialogues, was written in Sinhala with co-writer Anushka Senanayake and translated into English.