Vimukthi Jayasundara’s ‘Turtle’s Gaze on Spying Stars’ Starts Shoot

Sri Lankan auteur Vimukthi Jayasundara, whose “The Forsaken Land” (2005) won the Camera d’Or at Cannes, has started principal photography on his next film “Turtle’s Gaze on Spying Stars.”

One of the producers on the film is India’s Nila Madhab Panda, with whom Jayasundara collaborated to produce Nidhi Saxena’s “Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman,” which is world premiering this week at the Busan International Film Festival.

“Turtle’s Gaze on Spying Stars,” is currently shooting in and around the hills of central Sri Lanka. It is set in a future ravaged by a mysterious pandemic caused by the over-dependence of mankind on technology. The protagonist is a refugee from Sri Lanka who returns to the country and is forcibly admitted into a valley resort that has been converted into an isolation facility. Once there, memories from his Sri Lankan past haunt him, but, instead of producing fear, as is the facility’s intention, the experience has the opposite effect. He develops love and compassion from meeting strangers.

The film is produced by Panda, Vincent Wang and Fred Bellaiche’s Paris-based House on Fire (“Whether the Weather is Fine”) and Sri Lanka’s Film Council Productions (“Dark in the White Light”), with France’s Le Studio Orlando (“Plan 75”) as co-producer. It is supported by Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund + Europe, France’s CNC – Aide aux CInemas du Monde fund and Taiwan Creative Content Agency’s (TAICCA) Taiwan International Co-funding Program.

Since his Camera d’Or-winning debut, Jayasundara’s films, including “Between Two Worlds” (2009), “Mushrooms” (2011), “Dark in the White Light” (2015) and anthology film “Her. Him. The Other” (2018), have travelled to A-list festivals.

Panda, who is known for his films on climate change, said: “The future is right here. It’s magical to be at the film set of Vimukthi and witness his poetic storytelling manifesting itself. I was drawn to collaborate with his latest project for its mystical themes of humans vs nature, the themes closer to me, and this is the kind of cinema I want to be a part of and the world to see.”