‘Gaadi’ gets North American release

Distributors Deaf Crocodile Films and Gratitude Films Team to Give North American Releases to Sri Lankan Historical Drama ‘Children of the Sun’

Prasanna Vithanage’s newest film Children Of The Sun (Gaadi) has been selected for the North American releases. Indie distribution outfits Deaf Crocodile Films and Gratitude Films are combining forces to give limited theatrical releases this year to a pair of foreignlanguage titles.

Children Of The Sun (Gaadi) is a historical drama from Sri Lanka. Set in 1814 during the era of repressive British colonial rule in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the film depicts what happens after a collaborationist English agent convinces the local Sinhala Buddhist nobility to attempt to overthrow the rival Tamil king. The subsequent military disaster forces a Sinhala noble woman to choose between suicide and marriage to a lowcaste outcast.

Prasanna Vithanage directed the pic, which is in the Sinhala language, and will be released with English subtitles.

Also receiving an American release will be Boomba Ride, the Indian feature from God On A Balcony director Biswajeet Bora. The film is a satire of India’s rural education system, following an eight-year old boy (newcomer Indrajit Pegu) who knows how to rig the game for himself. The pic is in the Assamese language, and will be released with English subtitles.

Both films will receive a cinema run in the fall, followed by a digital release through partner Grasshopper Films for TVOD and SVOD.

“We’re thrilled to be releasing these two remarkable movies that demonstrate some of the phenomenal range and creativity in Indian and Sri Lankan filmmaking right now,” said Deaf Crocodile Co-Founder and Head of Acquisitions and Distribution Dennis Bartok. “Prasanna Vithanage’s Gaadi is such a lush and visually stunning portrait of political conflict, caste conflict and the clash of faiths in Sri Lanka’s history. Conversely, Biswajeet Bora’s Boomba Ride is a film about the smallest of subjects — a rural Indian school with one hilariously uncooperative eight-year old student — but it’s so beautifully observed and acted, with an authenticity that comes from Bora’s own Assamese background.” (Courtesy Deadline.com)