PEACOCK LAMENT

VIHANGA PREMAYA

By Sanjeewa PUSHPAKUMARA

ANTIPODE SALES & DISTRIBUTION LLC - as SALES All rights, World

Drama - Completed 2022

Sri Lankan Amila (19) is an orphan who has to take care of his four siblings. When one of his sisters falls sick and needs to undergo a risky – and expensive – surgery in India, Amila gets caught in a child trafficking business, in a desperate attempt to raise money and save his sister’s life.

Festivals
& Awards

Tokyo International Film Festival 2022
Competition
    • Year of production
    • 2022
    • Genres
    • Drama
    • Countries
    • SRI LANKA, ITALY
    • Languages
    • SINHALE
    • Budget
    • 0.3 - 0.6 M$
    • Duration
    • 103 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Sanjeewa PUSHPAKUMARA
    • Writer(s)
    • Sanjeewa PUSHPAKUMARA
    • Producer(s)
    • Sanjeewa PUSHPAKUMARA (Sapushpa Expression), Amil ABEYSUNDARA (Sapushpa Expression), Andrea MAGNANI (PILGRIM Film), Chiara BARBO (PILGRIM Film)
    • Synopsis
    • Amila is a 19-year-old boy who was born in a small village in Eastern Sri Lanka. After losing his mother and father, Amila moves to Colombo and is left with the responsibility of taking care of his siblings: two brothers – 14-year-old and 1-year-old – and two sisters – the elder is 12 and their little sister 5. Amila works as a construction worker in a Chinese building site in town. Amila’s sister Inoka is admitted to the main city hospital: she suffers from a congenital heart defect, a condition called Tetralogy of Fallot. The doctor recommends Amila to make arrangements for an urgent surgery, which needs to be done within two months in India.

      This will be the only way to save her life. For this reason, the young man commits himself to raise $15,000 in order to pay for the surgery. He pilfers as a way of surviving, while his siblings Susantha and Nisha secretly start begging on the streets, to help their family. One day Amila meets Malini, a 55-year-old woman who decides to help him out by having him work in her child trafficking business. She will pay him good money, the only way to pay for his sister’s surgery. Amila is given the task of finding and sending pregnant women to an illegal baby farm where the newborn are sold for adoption to Western couples. Amila tries to get out of the business, but his cause is just too dear to him and he is very conflicted. Susantha and the other two siblings end up being sent to a governmental orphanage.

      One night, Amila gets caught by the police while transporting a group of pregnant mothers and gets arrested. Malini eventually decides to take matters into her own hands. She brings the money she earned from her trafficking to get Inoka to India so that she can undertake the surgery, and flies away just like her in order to cover her own position.