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| Sunday, 13 July 2003 |
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Vimukthi Jayasundara and The new wave in Asian cinema Excerpts from the interview by Lasanda Kurukulasuriya A film by Vimukthi Jayasundara, a Sri Lankan student in France, was among six chosen from hundreds of entries by film school graduates from around the world to be screened at the 2003 edition of the Cannes International Film Festival. Vimukthi (26) was interviewed via e-mail during a busy period after Cannes when he was presenting his film at 13 film festivals in Europe. Q: Comment on your experience at Cannes.
A) The most significant thing for me was (being) greeted by the virtuoso, Asian maestro Dr. Lester James Peries returning to the festival after an absence of almost 20 years. That was wonderful ... Cannes is the only film festival that has recognized personal film making and celebrates all aspects of aesthetic film making. According to Jean Cocteau "The Festival is an apolitical no-man's-land, a microcosm of what the world would be like if people could contact each other directly and speak the same language." I really experienced this spirit. It has maintained balance between artistic quality of the films and their commercial impact. Q) Was the student category competitive? How many were selected out of how many, from which countries? A) Since the creation of Un certain regard and the Camera d'or, the Cannes Film Festival is open to young film directors. The creation in 1998 of a new official selection, the Cinefoundation, represents a further desire to widen its frontiers to young filmmakers. Each year, over 800 school films are submitted to the Cinefoundation. This year twenty Diploma films were selected for this competition, from students who have graduated from film schools. Two French productions were selected for Cannes this year and one of those was mine. My film was Vide pour l'amour (Empty for Love) and I was really pleased that it was so well received at Cannes. Q) What was the response like, to Vide pour l'amour? A) There was a screening of the film at the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris last year and the selection committee of the Cannes Film Festival came to see the film. Two months after, I got a letter from the president of the festival saying that my film was invited for Cannes. The film was invited without entering it. The artistic director of the selection committee (mentioned that it was) a most beautiful and modern film in this category. ... Vide pour l'amour already has been invited (to) many international film festivals in Europe and other western countries. Q) How was the response to your documentary "The land of silence?" Will it be screened in Sri Lanka? A) First of all, The land of silence will never have a chance to be screened in Sri Lanka. We do not have any place to show documentary films. Documentaries are not commercially released in Sri Lanka. The land of silence was selected for many film festivals, including Paris where it was screened in front of This is my moon by Asoka Handagama. After that it was screened at the opening of the MK2 Bibliotheque-Cinema where it played for one month with the film Hitler's secretary by Andrew Hiller. The audience were appreciative of the film and very inquisitive about this unknown cinema. The Cahiers du Cinema described it as an "extraordinary first film." This is too much but, that's how they welcome unknown cinema. At the same time Cahiers du Cinema pointed out that the commercial release of Handagama's This is my moon is an example of "New Wave Asian Cinema pioneered by Sri Lanka." In my view, this French recognition of a new trend from Asia, pioneered by Prasanna Vithanage and Asoka Handagama is incredibly important. Asoka Handagama's recent two films This is my moon and Flying with one wing have contributed greatly to this awareness among the French audience and I have benefited from this. I must specially mention that not only Asoka or Prasanna but many other new filmmakers who came through with the help of the National Film Development Fund (chaired by Tissa Abeysekara) have also contributed to this new Asian trend. It's sad that this new wave is not recognized in Sri Lanka but by Europe and other western countries. Q) Tell us something about the film programme you are following. A) I was doing my film studies in Le Fresnoy for the last two years. In 2001, I won the Moholy-nagy Scholarship to come to Le Fresnoy. It is a post-graduate art school and audio-visual research and production centre. Le Fresnoy takes advanced students for a two-year course run by guest artist-professors who themselves produce new work. Le Fresnoy then offers the public a programme of art films. The works produced by the visiting artist-professors and the young artists are also shown in various events throughout France and abroad. Le fresnoy is a place of experimentation and production. It is also a place that experiments with the whole process of filmmaking. In my view, in cinema, there are often 'film-school' methods. At the Fresnoy, we do not have permanent teaching body - only guest professors. They can be professional film makers or artists, or philosophers or anything.... The other good thing is that they are not professional teachers. They don't 'teach' us, we just work together. When I did my film in Le Fresnoy, (Vide pour l amour), I worked with Tasi Ming-ling.
The very first time Tasi asked me to write a film script, I asked him "how I can write a film script?" He then said to me "If you don't know how to write a script and also if you don't want to write a film script, try to draw something and try to explain to me what your film is about." I was very surprised by what he said. I then drew one page of images, which he then gave me a lot of advice on. So I did my film without a traditional film script.... then, I was selected to Cinefoundation in Paris which is run by the Cannes Film Festival. I was awarded this grant together with six others from around the world. At present I am working on my first feature film which will be co-produced in France. Q) What are your plans for after you finish? A) After the residency in Paris, I will start pre-production for my first feature film in Sri Lanka. That is the most important thing that I want to do at this moment. Q) You probably had the opportunity to work with some highly skilled professionals. Any special influences? A) When I was in Le fresnoy I worked with many film directors, I had some very inspiring teachers, including Tasi Ming-ling, Straub and Huillet and Alain Fleischer. I was particularly influenced by Tasi Ming-ling. Tsai Ming-Liang, for those who do not yet know him, is perhaps the most important filmmaker to come out of East Asia in the past decade. His small but coherent body of work transcends... genre and geography. All films focus on a young man (always played by Lee Kang-Sheng) and his relationship to others in the bleak cityscape of Taipei. They share the recurring theme of urban melancholia (think Antonioni in the 50s and 60s) and the inability for people to truly communicate with one another, a theme which finds echoes throughout Asia in the works of Wong Kar-Wai, Kyoshi Kurosawa or Alex Lai. Q) Any advice for up and coming filmmakers in Sri Lanka? A) I don't know if I can give any advice to anyone. I just give some ideas. The problem with our generation in relation to cinema is that we have grown up in a world where the image has become omnipresent and omnipotent, since we have been fed a diet of music videos and commercial Hollywood and Bollywood films. These are not forms that I'm particularly fond of, but their visual impact is undeniable. I think it is important to understand that technique is simply an illusion. It is good to aim more for simplicity. I think it is of primary importance for a filmmaker to be able to gather around him a group of people with whom he can communicate and, most of all, exchange ideas. Than you can find a way to make your own films. |
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