Film Review:

Global release for Sri Lanka love story

New Delhi - An Indian Tamil movie that reveals Sri Lanka's Tamil saga on the strength of a love story is set for international release Sep 1, but the director is not sure if it can get past the censor in India.

'Ani Ver' (Taproot) is a 90-minute film about an Indian woman journalist who falls in love with a Sri Lankan Tamil doctor, while attempting a cover story on the mass exodus of Tamils from Jaffna before government troops seized the town and its environs from the Tamil Tigers in 1995.

Director John Roshan, 38, says the movie, which also has an English version called 'Exodus', turned out to be 'very exciting' with the shooting done mostly in villages close to Colombo. It has just one song.

'For an upcoming filmmaker like me, it was very exciting,' John, as he is popularly known, told IANS in a telephonic interview from Chennai. Madhumita and Nanda play the lead roles.

'It is about the consequences of war,' John explained, speaking in English and Tamil. 'I suddenly felt I was doing this for a cause, that a huge responsibility had been thrust on me.

'But we are not passing any judgement on the movie,' he said, in apparent reference to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which is outlawed in India. 'It is a plain love story. I did not want it to look like a docudrama.'

John says he was ignorant of the Sri Lankan Tamil story until he decided to direct the movie, on the suggestion of a Sri Lankan Tamil man living in Europe, whose name was incidentally Prabhakaran. 'Prabhakaran has a TV network and said he was keen to do a movie on the Jaffna exodus. One day, he flew down to Chennai to discuss the project.

'I must be very honest. My knowledge of the Sri Lankan situation was very poor. He gave me lots of books, both non-fiction and short stories. Things then began to fall into place.'

The movie begins with a shot of Madhumita, who plays an Indian journalist, enquiring at a police station in Jaffna how she could re-establish contact with a Tamil doctor whom she met when tens of thousands of Tamils left Jaffna in 1995, on LTTE's advice.

The story takes several twists and turns until she finally teams up with the doctor, with whom she has fallen in love, during a street protest when security forces fire at Tamils demanding the right to get back to their homes.

There is a happy ending as they meet, but in the backdrop of distant bomb blasts and screams, showing there is no end to the Tamil separatist campaign.

John said the movie had got the censor certificate in Britain and was in the process of winning one in Switzerland and other countries where thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils live. Many of them support the LTTE.

'The movie is mainly for an international audience. We were not sure if it would be released in India. There could be censor problems,' he said, adding that it was most likely to have its international debut Sep 1.

John, whose first and only movie to date 'Sachin' (2005) did not fare well, said the latest film was backed by 'various small, small funds' and that he and the actors agreed to accept 'meagre payments'.

'After all it was for a purpose.'

He said he was pleasantly surprised to meet many Sri Lankan Tamils living in Europe who told him that they were keen to get back to Jaffna where their parents and forefathers lived. 'I was taken aback,' John said. 'If I were to settle down in a beautiful country like Switzerland, I don't think I would return (to India). It was marvellous the way they thought.'