‘A homage to Malayalam cinema’: Sri Lankan director Prasanna on his film Paradise

‘Paradise’, directed by Sri Lankan filmmaker Prasanna Vithanage, is about a Malayali couple who land in Sri Lanka during the economic crisis. The film has Darshana Rajendran and Roshan Mathew in the lead.
Roshan and Darshana in Paradise
Roshan and Darshana in Paradise
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Across a phone call, Prasanna Vithanage’s voice fades mid-sentence. It must be the weather, he says when he is back. As I picture Sri Lanka in the rain, he asks, is it pouring hard in Kerala. It isn’t, but there has been a spell or two, right in the middle of Onam. Ah, Onam, he says fondly of Kerala’s biggest festival. Everything about Kerala appears very dear to this filmmaker in Sri Lanka, who has been coming to the state’s annual film festival (IFFK) year after year since it began in the mid-1990s. It seems apt that after decades of making many noticeable films, Prasanna has now made a movie about two Malayalis and called it Paradise.

“A Malayali couple who land in Sri Lanka during the economic crisis, and how it affects their relationship,” Prasanna says, forms the narrative of the multilingual film. He has chosen two actors who have proven their skills in a very short time in Malayalam cinema – Darshana Rajendran and Roshan Mathew – to play this lead couple. There is also another Kerala connection – the film’s production house is the Kochi-based Newton Cinema, which has already made some movies of distinction, including Don Palathara’s Family and Varun Grover’s short Kiss.

“It was Geetu Mohandas, (actor, director), who introduced me to Anto Chittilappilly, head of Newton Cinema. I was then writing the screenplay of Paradise,” Prasanna says. He has worked with Geetu’s partner, acclaimed cinematographer and filmmaker Rajeev Ravi, for his 2019 film Children of the Sun. It was screened at the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) – the one Prasanna had been visiting annually – in 2019, much to his delight. That was his last release before Paradise


Prasanna Vithanage

Since 1991, Prasanna has been making films sporadically – sometimes leaving years in between and other times making more than one a year. He has been winning awards too since Ice on Fire, his first. Walls Within, August Sun, Flowers of the Sky, With you / Without you, have all won several accolades in the years that passed. Before films, Prasanna did theatre for a few years. When asked if that had anything to do with his casting Darshana and Roshan, two actors who have been active in theatre, he says no. He hadn’t known they did theatre until much later.

“I watched Darshana in C U Soon, the movie they made during the pandemic, and realised that she is an actor who will go that extra mile to bring out a character. Later, I watched her in Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey, but by then Paradise was done too,” he says.

Roshan was fixed when Prasanna saw his performance in Geetu Mohandas’s Moothon and in the Hindi film Darlings. He flew to Kochi to meet Roshan and found him “sensitive and intelligent.” Roshan, known for his preparatory ways, came with a notepad full of questions, jotting down all the nuances of his character, Prasanna says appreciatively.


Still from Paradise

Then there is Rajeev Ravi too, playing cinematographer in Paradise. There is just so much of Kerala in Prasanna’s film and talk that I ask him if he would ever make a Malayalam film. “But this is one,” he says, laughing. “It is about two Malayalis, it is just that it is set in Sri Lanka”. He says that the film is multilingual but Anto [of Newton] decided to have it released in English, Malayalam, Tamil, and Sinhalese.

Prasanna goes on to say that Kerala and Sri Lanka are culturally very similar and that Malayalam filmmakers have inspired Lankan cinema. “Every day, there will be a Malayalam film on television. I must have watched nearly every film made by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. [Late] G Aravindan is another of my favourite filmmakers. Paradise is a homage to Malayalam cinema,” he says.

Paradise will have a world premiere at the Busan film festival in October, and afterward, a release in theatres. Prasanna also hopes to bring it to his beloved IFFK in December. But of course.

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