Director Biography – Rajee Samarasinghe
Rajee SAMARASINGHE (1988, Sri Lanka) was born and raised amidst the decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka. He later left for the United States where he is now based. Much of his work examines sociopolitical conditions in Sri Lanka through the scope of deconstructing ethnographic practices and the colonial gaze in contemporary media. Samarasinghe’s films have been screened at venues internationally including the Ammodo Tiger Short Competition at IFFR in 2020.
SYNOPSIS
A haunting collage of pomegranate arils, rural and urban landscapes, family history and mandalas undulate at a crossroads between death and longing. Inspired by the love poem Caurapañcāśikā by Bilhana, Lotus-Eyed Girl unfurls the impacts of colonialism on human desire with a pulsating, ambient eeriness.