The director of a banned Sri Lankan film ‘Flying Fish’ has rejected government claims it seeks to insult the armed forces. Sanjeewa Pushpakumara said the film, Flying Fish, sought to depict reality and was based on his own experiences growing up in Sri Lanka’s war zone.
The film was banned on Friday after being shown at a festival promoted by the French embassy in Colombo.
A government spokesman said the film was “illegal” and used images of the army uniform without permission.
In a statement issued from South Korea, where he is based, Sanjeewa Pushpakumara denied discrediting the military and said he sought to depict reality “in a humane and artistic way”.
He denied any links with the LTTE or non-governmental organisations, and dismissed state television broadcasts which had alleged such ties.
The distribution and screening of the film had been stopped in Sri Lanka, government security spokesman Lakshman Hulugalle, confirmed on Monday.
Press Release
My Stance and explanation on the film Flying Fish and the recent Bad Press about it
A lot of things have been said in the media about the film Flying Fish since its screening at the BMICH to mark the inauguration of the French Spring Film Festival on the 11th of July 2013. As the director of the film, I feel it is necessary to explain a few things regarding Flying Fish and its context.
1) It was not my intention to insult or to portray a defamatory image of the security forces of Sri Lanka in any way through the film Flying Fish. Instead, my only intention was to present the realistic circumstances of war-torn lives artistically and truthfully in broad a humanist angle. The inspiration for this film is derived from the lives of me, my family and friends. The film narrates my direct or indirect personal experiences and relationships with different people who entered and departed from my life.
Being a person grown-up in a border area, I thankfully enjoy the benefits of the ending of the dreadful 30-year long war concluded. However, it is those brutal experiences of the war that I was forced to witness and experience directly while growing-up as a child, that ultimately became the subject matter for this film. I spent my childhood and my life in a village, which was controlled by the government security forces during the day, and, by the LTTE during the night. So, under these circumstances I noticed how the lives of the ordinary people, who were not involved with the army, were becoming militarized. As a little child, I understood how this ‘militarization’ led towards creating insecurity and vulnerability in the society we were living in. I understand that the impressions I created on screen (based on my personal experiences and the reality I had lived) may not agree with the images of the war and the military that the government has constructed and want to create. After the conclusion of the war, when we talk about rebuilding and normalizing the day-to-day lives of my fellow people, we cannot gloss over or forget this unfortunate and harsh reality, because this fragmented life is the real building blocks of our tomorrow. Besides, any ideology that forgets this reality is bound to fail for the fault of its unrealistic nature. So, isn’t it necessary to accept this reality of the situation if we are to move forward? My intention was to transform that reality into a social discourse.
2) Throughout the making of this film (before, during or after the production) I have had no relationship whatsoever with the Tamil diaspora, NGOs or any other donor organizations as erroneously accused of by the media, and neither have I accepted any donations or funds for the production of Flying Fish from any of these organizations. I can assure that I never had any relationship or understanding with the above-mentioned groups at any point in my short career, on a personal or a professional basis.
3) The funding for this film was done by Asia Digital Entertainment (Pvt) Ltd of Mr. Manohara Nannayakara. The film was produced with Rs 2.5 million and later the Hubert Bals Fund of Rotterdam Film Festival in Netherlands granted Euro 20,000 for its postproduction purposes. Hubert Bals Funds has been established to support third world country
Filmmakers.Nevertheless, one of their conditions was that the Hubert Bals fund acquires the film’s ownership for Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Further, this is not the first time that a Sri Lankan film succeeded in obtaining the Hubert Bals Fund. Therefore, it is a complete falsehood to state that this film obtained money from either France, NGOs or from any Diaspora.
4) This film contains three narratives. Those stories are related to the experiences of people living in a war-torn society. Their lives were overwhelmed by the war and, consciously or unconsciously, each character lived in that society is scarred by the brutality of war. So, I wanted to include these narratives that I experienced in my life through an artistic creation. My intention was never to support any particular group or to condemn another. Flying Fish presents the atrocities conducted by the LTTE to Tamil citizens during the war, such as arbitrary killings, exorbitant ransoms and plight of the LTTE child soldiers whose lives (and childhoods) are brutally taken away from them as a result of the war. What I wanted to portray through my experiences were the nature of the misdeeds taking place during an armed conflict and the damage they cause to humanity. I wanted to highlight the harm and the devastation that happened to human lives, and this was not done with the intention of glorifying this ‘devastation’ but with the wish of sowing the idea of overcoming it in the society. Flying Fish is not a fiction. It is an expression of broken lives and the remains of a war-torn society.
SanjeewaPushpakumara / Flying Fish / Director
