Realising a simple dream

The lush greenery of Sri Lankan country side and the simplicity of villagers and their way of living gets the best cinematic expression in Indika Ferdinando’s ‘The Singing Pond’. The story of the remote village starts with a piano that is delivered to the primary school, but the principal refuses to let anyone catch a glimpse of it until the teacher Uma arrives.

The caring, loving and sensitive teacher helps the kids know what a piano is. When a visually impaired girl dreams of an ocean, the entire village realises that they too share the same dream, yet are clueless to realize it. The rest of the story is about the kids, who, with the help of their teacher realise their dream. At one point one is reminded of how it need not always be elders who are teachers, but children too can teach many things to grownups.

Speaking about the film the director shares, “I have met some kids in Sri Lanka, who live hardly 10km from the ocean, but never seen it. I found that it is really an innocent unfulfilled dream of the kids and were clueless how to realise it. Anasuya Subasinghe, a famous theatre actor from Srilanka, who played the role of the teacher is quite happy with the response for the film at the festival.

“It is easier to access cinema for children than theatre and hence the medium should be used to improve their self confidence. I was there during the auditions. We had 450-500 kids from whom we selected. We then did a workshop and at the end of it I knew them well and they became my friends. So it was easy working with them.

Anasuya even drives a bus in the film that she learnt in an hour’s time, but says it was still the easiest part. “There so much more in the entire process of making the film that have been much more difficult,” she opines.

The movie towards the end speaks of revolution of a new kind, the lead actor explains, “Sri Lanka has always been having strikes – by university students – however- what does the common man think about it and how is he affected by it – is the question. There is a revolution within our lives always.

In developing countries like ours there is a need to have a revolution at the grassroot level,” she opines. “We do not talk much about civil war in our cinema. We were in it for 30 years and it is too soon to celebrate. There is a need to talk about it in theatre and films, she adds.

By:Rajeshwari Kalyanam