A film by Suranga Katugampala
Sunita, a middle-aged srilankan woman, lives with her teenage son on the outskirts of a northern Italian city where she works as a caregiver.
The relationship between mother and son is fraught with tension and silence.
Having grown up in Italy, the boy is a cultural hybrid his mother struggles to understand, as she fights to live in a country to which she does not want to belong.
I wanted a minimalist film, simple and close as possible to the reality.
It was December of 2014.
I was in negombo Sri Lanka. Aravinda and I talked about this film day and night. How to do it, with whom and how to find the money. Only thing that we were sure of was the deep urgent need to tell a story, to tell 'here we are', 'our story is also your story, a story we all can relate to'.
A very minimalistic film was born. made with moments of everyday and household life, at times repetitive.
A story of any other province in northern italy. I didn't want to write any precise dialogs. Everything was improvised during the shooting, adopted by actors to suit what they were feeling at that time. The words in the end were chosen by them.
We worked with a high level of anarchy. We were forced to do so. Kirthi, the electrician, was climbing trees and putting up lights, something which is considered illegal in Italy. Shirantha, one of the actors drove us around in the van with his broken leg. It was necessary. Because we had only what we had and we had no other option but to be satisfied with what we had.
The dream of a simple cinema was slowly realising. Meanwhile we were riding the happy wave of telling our story.
Since its drafting, this project have attracted many people who were willing to offer a ride, a plate of rice or a place to stay. We united our forces, in front of thousand problems, Sri Lankans and Italians, because this was the story of every one of us.
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