TV Times

TV Times

Vimukthi’s Forsaken Land
By Susitha R. Fernando
Director Vimukthi Jayasundara gained recognition in the international film circle when his short film, “Empty for Love”, a production of ‘Le Fresnoy’, a French Film studio , was selected to be screened at the Cannes International Film Festival 2003.

This film was screened at over fifty festivals world wide, winning several awards including the awards for the Best Director at Novo Mesto International Short Film Festival- Slovnie 2003.

Now his first feature film, ‘The Forsaken Land’ co-produced by Sri Lanka and European Producers is ready for Sri Lanka, France and worldwide release. Vimukthi’s script ‘The Forsaken Land’ was selected as the best Cine Mart project in The 2004 International Film Festival Rotterdam and was awarded the Prince Claus Film Grant. This Grant helps young filmmakers to make innovative films that will help them to expand their talents.

Selecting the script “the Jury felt that it was particularly exciting to support a film-maker who appears to be on the threshold of an extremely important debut”. Prince Claus Film Grant seeks to develop an international film culture bringing vivid and varied cultures and ambiences to one arena.

The Forsaken Land revolves around a few isolated characters living in a vast, desolate region close to the theatre of war. The film follows each individual as they wander around aimlessly, and seemingly without hope in a quest for meaning. The harsh terrain and the trauma of the past violence having left them incapable of finding any resolution to their alien existence. Despite the cease-fire, the characters see no redemption from the horror of their past or their uncertain present.

The listless existence of one of the villagers leads to an incomprehensible crime: driven to murder an unknown assailant under cover of darkness, the scene is a haunting allegory to Raskolnikov’s murder of a money-lender in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

In “ The Forsaken Land “ the murder epitomizes the loss of humanity, and defines mankind’s gradual descent into madness and barbarity. Vimukthi also has used the world’s latest technology of Filmmaking in his debut feature.

Using the world’s most developed sound system called Cantar-X brings five firsts in digital-audio recording on the synchronization of sound and image with its in-camera time-recording system. A sophisticated on location recorder with the ‘18 inputs to 8 track’ routing, recall the user’s routings and settings.

Using DIGITAL- DA VINCI 2K+, One of the most powerful colour processing systems in the film world, multi-standard, multi-resolution image processor that can color enhance in high definition on film.

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