Sanjeewa Pushpakumara
(Sri Lanka/Italy, 2022, 103 min., Sinhala with English subtitles)
Saturday, September 23, 7pm
Shemin Auditorium, Shaffer Art Building
Q&A with actor/producer Sangeetha Godagama and producer Suranga Handapangoda
After the death of his mother, Amila (Akalanka Prabashwara) relocates his two brothers and two sisters from their village in rural East Sri Lanka to the capital of Colombo, where they set up camp in a half-built shell of a building. Struggling on a wage from a Chinese-owned construction site, Amila takes work with Malini (Sabeetha Perera), whose ‘Baby Farm’ business traffics the infants from unwanted pregnancies to wealthy foreigners. At first, the job working for Malini seems ideal. It’s well paid and relatively easy. Amila’s duties include collecting young pregnant women in a converted biscuit truck and delivering them to the Baby Farm dormitories. There, according to the contract they have signed with Malini’s illegal organization, they must relinquish their phones and give up their babies without question once they have been chosen by customers. Sometimes, however, the young women have second thoughts, and Amila is required to track down runaways and return them. He empathizes with these desperate women and, once he strikes up a friendship with one of them, Nadee (Dinara Punchihewa), Amila finds the job increasingly at odds with his conscience. The fourth dramatic feature from award-winning director Sanjeewa Pushpakumara is a wrenching autobiographical story of survival, and of emotional connections forged under duress (Wendy Ide, Screen Daily).