Cinema
This Is My Moon
මේ මගේ සඳයි
Asoka Handagama · 2000
Synopsis
In war-torn northern Sri Lanka, a Sinhalese soldier abandoned by his company hides in a bunker, into which a terrified Tamil woman falls, whom he forces into a relationship. He deserts and returns to his village, struck by drought and frozen in waiting for the men gone to the front; the woman follows him. His family, who thought him dead and were counting on his pension, and his fiancée, who refuses a deserter, turn away from him, and the couple's arrival unsettles the village's fragile balance.
Context
Written and directed by Asoka Handagama, produced by Upul Jayasinghe, shot by Channa Deshapriya to music by Rohana Weerasinghe, the film brings together Saumya Liyanage and Dilhani Ekanayake. Shown at the London Film Festival in 2000, then at more than fifty festivals, it opened the Festival d'automne in Paris and was released in France on 30 October 2002, distributed by Héliotrope Films, under its English title, This Is My Moon.
Who it is for
To view the Sri Lankan civil war from behind the lines, where a village waits for men who do not come back.
Prizes and reception
In Singapore in 2001 the film won the Young Cinema Award and the international critics' prize; the Cahiers du cinéma welcomed it with enthusiasm.