Sri Lankan talent commended at Cannes
View(s):A rare and natural talent from Sri Lanka played a crucial role in the film that won the best film award at the world prestigious Cannes film festival, this year.
Acclaimed director Jacques Audiard’s thriller film ‘Dheepan’ which spotlighted the plight of traumatised refugees building new lives in the rich Europe won Palme d’Or top prize last Sunday.
Director Jacques Audiard (C) poses with Sri Lankan actors Kalieaswari Srinivasan (R) and Jesuthasan Antonythasan after being awarded the Palme d’Or for “Dheepan” at the 68th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, on May 24, 2015 (AFP Photo/Loic Venance)
Its main actor Anthonythasan Jesuthasan a former LTTEer fleeing the mayhem of his war-ravaged homeland joins two strangers — a young woman and a nine-year-old girl — pretend to be a family to make it to France on fake passports to find a safe haven in the Europe. A jury led by American filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen chose the gritty picture about Sri Lankan asylum-seekers by acclaimed French director Jacques Audiard from a field of 19 international contenders, the international media reported.
Anthonythasan, a writer himself fought the ethnic war in Sri Lanka as a child soldier. After three terrifying years, he managed to escape to Thailand before travelling in 1993 on a fake passport to France, where he was eventually granted political asylum, the foreign media stated.According to him the character of Dheepan he portrayed was about “50 percent” autobiographical.
Anthonythasan did odd jobs until he began writing in the late 1990s, churning out short stories, plays, political essays and, most recently, novels inspired by his experiences in Sri Lanka.