Cinema Anthology by new filmmakers on pandemic
A Sri Lankan anthology film created during the first year of the pandemic
Since March 2019, the theatres were closed, shooting of films was stopped and cinema came to a standstill. Even though cinema halls were opened for a brief breaks, films were screened for almost empty audience. In 2020 the New
Year came but the situation continued. However those dreaming to make cinemas wanted somehow to express themselves. About what? Nothing but Covid-19 pandemic itself. The result was ‘Goodnight Colombo’, an anthology film series showing various perspectives of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Presented by Agenda 14 with the support of the International Relief Fund of the German Federal Foreign Office, Goethe-Institut and other partners, the eleven films come out with eleven narratives, featuring different perspectives of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Themes vary from love, relationships, feminism, child rights, the plight of artistes during the pandemic, addictions, religious beliefs and the rights of the LGBT groups.
“This audio-visual project was initiated during this time of great distress and uncertainty, based on ongoing discussions, held online among all the directors and other participants of the different chapters of the anthology film,” said Anomaa Rajakaruna, Creative Producer of the project.
“The prevailing focus was to use available material, minimum resources, maintain social distancing and create work that can portray the many realities of the pandemic, its restrictions and their impact on life, as felt by a younger set of filmmakers, through their life experiences and sto
ries they came to see and hear, during the larger part of 2020,” she said.
“The challenge was how to create cinema within an extremely limited budget, mobility and technical constraints like making a film for widescreen using a tiny mobile phone,” she explained. Anoma and the eleven filmmakers were grateful to the International Relief Fund of the German Federal Foreign Office and Goethe-Institut that they could realise their film dreams even during the pandemic.
“This film is entirely shot with a smart phone camera with a minimalist approach to cast and crew and produced within the restrictions that prevail within the ‘new normal’.
Yet picture quality was kept at 4k with a 5.1 sound mix aiming to Maximum achievement with minimum resources,” said Anoma describing the uphill task of making movies for big screen using a mobile phone.
The entire project had been a new challenge for those in the project. Shooting from a mobile phone there was no chance to change lenses and it was done using the available natural light. Interestingly most of the films were based on true incidents that had taken place during the
pandemic and they were extraordinary events that had taken place during everyday life.
The eleven directors were Nipunika Fernando,
Krishan Kodithuwakku,
Lanka Bandaranayake, Muvindu Binoy, Sumudu Athukorala, Dimon John, Fathima Shanaz, Mathavan Maheswaran, Danushka Wijesooriya, Yoshitha Perera and Rahul Ratnayake.
The project brought together four female directors and seven males, putting together nine chapters in Sinhala and two chapters in Tamil, to complete the anthology film. Among the all-female crew were two cinematographers and an editor.
Shot from end September 2020, the project was executed using a single mobile phone to capture the images and one sound recordist, shared by all
the directors for each film. It was shot under available lighting conditions with a director, camera person and sound recordist as crew and with mostly non-actors enacting the scenes. A few professional actors also took part in creating some chapters of the anthology film.
The entire preproduction including selecting locations, background settings and costume selections were done via online.
“With pre-production discussions taking place beforehand, as filming was to commence in end September, the second wave of the Coronavirus disease outbreak emerged, bringing in the need to respond to this new situation, which resulted in further changes to planned out storylines and finding ways to work with newly imposed restrictions. It was a new experience,” said Anoma.
The shooting took place with the guidance and extended conversations with Public Health Inspectors of the respective locations, adhering to the Coronavirus pandemic guidelines issued by the health authorities.
The anthology employs a few characters, most of them young, with only a handful of actors from a more mature age group. The storylines also centre on young lives and the experimentation was mostly on how to approach the film medium as a low cost activity during this time of restriction and physical distancing. While the project was ongoing, the second wave of lockdown posed further restrictions and needed further innovation in how to complete the ongoing work.
The film anthology was released online on Wednesday, July 7 for 24 hours and discussions are underway to release it for public screening. There are also plans to release the movies at international film festivals.