The Rising Gardens Film Festival will be held every other weekend across four months, starting today (15). The festival is part of the One Billion Rising programme that kicked off back in 2012 as a movement against domestic violence and a platform to empower women. They have hosted events annually throughout the years, and this year’s venture is the film festival.
Sri Lankan filmmaker Irushi Tennekoon, who will be showcasing two of her films at the event, explained the concept behind the festival. “The festival will highlight women and their relationship with the environment and agriculture.” Unlike other years, the festival will be held entirely online, in light of the current pandemic.
The festival will feature 11 films from seven countries, and Tennekoon will be representing Sri Lanka with her two films “Asha de Vos on studying blue whales” and “Sybil Wettasinghe on the umbrella thief”.
Tennekoon shared that her two films are part of an ongoing series, funded by a grant by the British Council, Sri Lanka. She was part of a programme done by the British Council, “Creating Heroines”, where she even attended a workshop in Nepal back in 2019, which, she explained, is how she got the opportunity to apply for this grant. Her idea behind her series was to interview women in Sri Lanka who are doing amazing work in their respective professions. After the interviews were conducted, she took excerpts from the recordings and animated them using clay animation and some mixed methods to depict their stories. “It’s still very experimental,” she commented, adding: “I completed the first three in March last year and had an exhibition. Since then I’ve completed one more. I plan on starting the last two shortly.”
Aside from de Vos and Wettasinghe, she also interviewed principal dancer of the Chitrasena Dance Academy Thaji Dias, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder of ICT (information and communications technology) firm BoardPac Lakmini Wijesundera, Attorney-at-Law Ramani Muttettuwegama, and Amila de Mel on archiving architecture. “They’re six very different personalities and each have done wondrous work in their respective fields.”
Talking about why she chose to submit the de Vos and Wettasinghe films to the festival, she said: “Asha is someone that we’ve grown up with; we even went to school together and she’s a personal heroine to me. I love the ocean, and have a deep interest in marine biology. I scuba dive and am very much in love with the ocean.” She added that she wanted to tell de Vos’ story to her audience because more people should know about the amazing work she does. Tennekoon is also an artist and illustrator of picture books by profession, as well as a lecturer of English at the University of Colombo, so Wettasinghe was a big inspiration in her life. “Growing up with Sybil’s books was a huge inspiration, to have managed to tell her story and to have shown her the film before she passed away made this a very personal project for me.”
At the Agenda 14 Film Festival, held last year, the film “Asha de Vos on studying blue whales” won the Green Award, which is typically given to a filmmaker that talks about the environment and the problems it faces due to human activities and “Sybil Wettasinghe on the umbrella thief” won Best Animated Film.
She worked on the projects with a young team of creatives – Director of Photography Yoshitha Perera; Shahdia Jamaldeen, Shenuka Corea, S.Surendran, Venuranga Manage, and Gayathri Perera, who managed prop and set fabrication; and Sankha Malwaththa and Dileepa Jayakody who edited the films. “Because of the British Council grant I was able to pay them, and not just use their services for free. It was a very creatively stimulating environment to work with these young adults. This project could not have been done on my own, and I really appreciated their support,” she expressed.
Tennekoon extends her gratitude to Agenda 14 Film Festival Director Anoma Rajakaruna, who encouraged her to apply for the Rising Gardens Film Festival, and Rising Gardens Film Festival Curator Reena Mohan for providing her with this incredible opportunity.
Film stills: www.doculive.in
Register to watch the festival on: http://www.doculive.in/p/rising-gardens-film-festival-2021.html?m=1
