After spending a long and tiring day speaking to people on the ground in the war-torn Sri Lanka of late 2000s, Tamil-Canadian filmmaker Maya Bastian, who was 26 at the time, was overwhelmed with questions about her identity and privilege. Little did she know that almost a decade later, those very questions would take center stage in a short film directed by her.
Tigress, Maya’s latest short is about Trina, a stubborn and rebellious 20-year-old Tamil-Canadian girl who goes to Sri Lanka as an aid worker during the war. One night during a drunken foray, she is confronted with an alternate version of herself who never left Sri Lanka. On one side of the mirror is Trina, clad in a white dress, staring into the mirror with a lingering sense of dread and shimmering glitter on her face from the party she was at earlier that night. On the other side of the mirror, we find her alternate self – a paramilitary fighter for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – who remarks that sometimes violence can be a form of charity.
What would have become of the diaspora girl had she not fled the country with her parents? How would she perceive rebellion? How do her choices, or the lack of it, shape her identity? These are the questions that both the filmmaker Maya and her protagonist Trina are faced with. Speaking to TNM, Maya explains how the story was conceptualised years ago while she was working with non-governmental organizations in Sri Lanka and how it has evolved over the years. “When I went to Sri Lanka in 2009, I had no idea of getting into conflict journalism or filmmaking. I worked with an NGO as a videographer. But I continued to dive into conflict and post-conflict work. I have been drawn towards filmmaking since I was a child. Before visiting Sri Lanka, I was an actor for two years. Tigress is a scene from a short film I wrote in the late 2000s. Over time, I revisited it and added more sequences and perspectives,” she says.
Screengrab from Tigress. Credit: YouTube
While Maya drew inspiration from war journalists like Christiane Amanpour and James Nachtway during her years working as a videographer, she has also been moved by the filmmaking techniques of directors like Gaspar Noe, Apichatpong Weersethakul, Mani Ratnam, and Lynne Ramsay. For instance, the vivid imagery, sounds and surreal setting in Tigress was aptly inspired by Apichatpong’s works. When Trina encounters her alternate self, light hits the ocean waves and fragments of glass accentuate the jungle scenery to highlight the occurrence of a hyper-real and time-bending experience.
For some filmmakers, their craft becomes a means of catharsis, for some it is a tool to drive a message home to the audiences, and yet for few others, it is a personal journey. When asked how Maya approaches filmmaking or why she does what she does, the Tigress director says, “With my films, I’d like to shed light on the unknown. I feel that we are in a time where we have marketed a lot of ideas about what is reality and what is fact. When I have been in conflict zones, I have seen the truth and I know it is not what the newspapers tell you. Online stories are very politically weighted but people need a voice. I am very interested in hearing first person accounts and helping people have a voice,” she says.
At the same time, she also underlines that she does not identify herself as the voice of any culture. “I am not trying to represent an entire culture or anything but present my point of view. And my point of view is informed by the work I’ve done in the country,” she adds. She goes on to explain how it is also the reason why she also expects the cast and crew to have similar sensibilities. Maya says, “Anne Saverimuthu, who played the lead role, really understood the character and even when she walked in for the auditions, we could see how she had an innate understanding of the character and she had embodied Trina.”
Filmmaker Maya Bastian
She explains that it is because of approaching films through this prism that Maya stays committed to narrating stories that are her own. When asked if she aspires to reflect on the ongoing economic crisis in her work, Maya quips, “Though I have been monitoring the situation closely, I don’t think I will talk about it through my films. Diaspora politics and intergenerational issues are my areas of expertise and I think I will continue to speak on those themes."
Tigress, the short that revolves around diaspora persons coming to terms with their western privilege and understanding the grim realities faced by their ancestors, faced several challenges. “We could not shoot in Sri Lanka so we filmed in India. After post-production, we had sent it to 20-35 film festivals. I always feel that I am led by something greater than myself. When the odds were stacked against the short and it did not make it, I couldn’t help but think what went wrong from my end. I realised later that finding our target audience is an important step. I did not consider myself as an arthouse director but my film apparently is. I learnt that the film has a better chance at being selected for a bigger festival if it is produced by a production company from the same country,” Maya remarks. Tigress was bankrolled by Blackout Media and India’s Jar Pictures, and supported by CBC, Netflix and Canadian Film Centre.
Actor Anne and others from the crew on the sets of Tigress.
Still from Tigress.
Maya and her team have been on cloud nine ever since Tigress started streaming at film festivals and garnered positive feedback at many of them including Cannes. Community screenings too have also been held in Canada. She has been unable to screen Tigress in Sri Lanka, but Maya hopes that her future projects reach more people.
While the short has made quite the impression in film festivals, it has also attracted flak from different sections of the Tamil diaspora in Canada. “I got pushback from people claiming that the LTTE never employed child soldiers. But I had spoken to the parents and families of people whose children were taken away. There was even an instance where the parents told me they had buried their child in trash to avoid being recruited by LTTE. People think I am against Eelam Tamils and LTTE because of Tigress, but really, I have just shown facts. While discussing the war, I want to show both the dark and the light,” Maya says.
Watch the trailer of 'Tigress' here:
Maya observes that once she moved past the phase where she was disappointed with the response and the criticism, she could understand how multiple points of views are bound to exist and that it takes time for people to process their trauma. “Even when you talk to people in Sri Lanka, the responses and their perception towards the LTTE is so varied. One person will say they love the Tigers, while their next door neighbour would say they hate them. I have learnt to accept that trauma takes time to heal,” the filmmaker says.
Maya is currently working on her feature film which is based on the realities of a community living in Sri Lanka, a comedy series on race and representation titled How To Be Brown, and is also co-writing and directing a paranormal mystery series. Work on art projects such as a couple of video installations are also in progress.