THE BEDFOLK

“an empty bottle blinks from the canal small people dwell in the murky water   at night they mend sandals and wash laundry gut fish and string up their scales they scrub the washrooms and pull the towels leave little gifts on the doorstep a bowl of milk for the disappeared rice and sambol for…

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Movie Review: THIRAI KADAL (THE CHASM)

At their closest point, India and Sri Lanka are maybe thirty minutes of boat ride apart. Between them lies an inlet of the Bay of Bengal called Palk Bay: but it is more than just its shallow, reef-studded waters that divides the communities on both sides. No ferry crosses this strait, and Indian fishermen routinely…

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Theatre Review: PatriANarchy

On April 1st, 2018, Grassrooted presented “V Day 2018: PatriANarchy” at the re-purposed warehouse IdeaHell in Colombo 3. Nine short plays written by Paba Deshapriya, Dharini Priscilla, and Hans Billimoria were staged by a large cast of performers within two hours to explore questions of gender, cultural values, and violence. The setup of IdeaHell is…

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Movie Review: HICHKI

Starring acclaimed actress Rani Mukerji, “Hichki” (Hiccup) is a 2018 Bollywood drama directed by Siddharth P. Malhotra and inspired by the 2008 American movie “Front of the Class”, which was itself an adaptation of Brad Cohen’s eponymous book. “Hichki” tells the story of a woman struggling with Tourette syndrome as she follows her dream of…

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Theatre Review: COMPASSION. THE HISTORY OF THE MACHINE GUN

Swiss director Milo Rau is highly acclaimed and somewhat controversial, his work documentary as well as political. From drowning refugees in the Mediterranean to the Rwandan genocide in 1994, “Compassion. The History of the Machine Gun” once again touches on the topics he has explored in “The Congo Tribunal” or “The Civil Wars”. 

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Movie Review: DIE TÄTER

In 2013, the Munich Higher Regional Court opened its trial against Beate Zschäpe and the National Socialist Underground (NSU) in Germany, which is still ongoing at the time of writing. In 2016, the German public broadcaster ARD produced a series of three movies (“Mitten in Deutschland” / “NSU German History X”) detailing the background of…

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Movie Review: FOR A SON

The 2016 Sri Lankan/Italian movie FOR A SON (Per un figlio / Puthekuta), written and directed by Suranga Deshapriya Katugampala, tells the story of two Sri Lankan immigrants in Italy, a single mother and her teenage son.

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