‘Burning Birds’ competes with the Best Oscar winner ‘Moonlight’ in Switzerland
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‘Davena Vihagun’ (Burning Birds) written and directed by Sanjeewa Pushpakumara has been nominated for the Best Film of the15th International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva (FIFDH). The film will be competing for the award with another seven films including Golden Globe awards and Best Academy awarded film ‘Moonlight’. The festival will be held from March 10 to 19 and the Swiss premier of the film will be on March 12 in Geneva.
‘Burning Birds’ has also been nominated for the Best Film at 27th African Asian Latin American Film Festival held from March 19 to 27 in Milano. It was earlier invited for the 46th Rotterdam International Film Festival where the film won rave reviews and accolades from both the public and critics. The film ranked at no 17th out of 175 films of official selections on Audience fall. Parallel to Rotterdam film festival, the film was nominated for the prestigious the Ingmar Bergman Award at the 40th Göteborg International Film Festival (Gutenberg) in Sweden.
‘Burning Birds’ world premiered at the 21stBusan International Film Festival in South Korea last October, where it was nominated for the Best Film of the festival. Though the film did not win the award it could have won many hearts of critics and the audience. Last November the film won the Special Jury Prize (the second prize) of 17th Tokyo FILMeX International Film Festival in Japan.
The second direction by Sanjeewa ‘Burning Birds’ is followed by his controversial debut Flying Fish (IgillenaMaluwo). A co-production among Sri Lanka, France, The Netherlands and Doha Qatar, ‘Burning Birds’ film project was selected for the 2012- 2013, 25thCinéfondationResidence Programme of the Cannes Film Festival in Paris. Following that the script was selected for the Jerusalem International Film Labin 2014 for advanced script development.
Produced by Antonin Dedet and Dominique Welinski (France) on behalf of Neon Production and SanjeewaPushpakumara on behalf of Sapushpa Expressions ( Sri Lanka), the international sales agent of ‘Burning Birds’ is Film Republic in London.
Mahendra Perera, Samanalee Fonseka, AnomaJanadari , Chandani Senavirathne, LeonieKotalawala, Pubudu Chathuranga, Priyanka Samaraweera,Dasun Pathirana,Tissa Bandaranayaka, Shyam Fernando, Dharshan Dharmaraj, Sanjeewa Dissanayake and Dharmapriya Dias comprise the cast of ‘Burning Birds’.
Cinematographer- Kalinga Deshapriya, editors – Ajith Ramanayake and Katharina Wartena, make Up – Priyantha Dissanayaka , art director – Piyathissa Akurambada, costume designer – Ajantha Alahakoon, sound engineers – Nicolas D’halluin and Aruna Priyantha Kaluarchchi, color grading – Elie Akoka, assistant director – Aruna Thilakarathne, second assistant director – Niroshan Edirimanna and production manager of the film is Harald Karunathilaka.