Home

News

Politics

Issues

Editorial

Spotlight

Insight

Sports

Business

Review

Arts

Letters

Nutshell

Interviews

Fashion

Archives

The Wind Birds to rise soon

A cinematic voyage of two hours between dreams and reality, permit the audience to realise the difference between awakening life through dreams and pushing life to sleep within reality

The journey begins..

'Rathie' is a young girl from a remote village, working in a suburban garment factory. She befriends a young soldier and falls in  love. They start enjoying each other's youthful warmth quite freely. And one fine day Rathie realises, she has conceived. Grappling with this unexpected new realisation, she gets carried away into a world of her own. A simple and beautiful dream world that any young woman would want to build for her with a marriage and a family life. While she immerses herself quite happily in this elusive world, she gets to know the realities of the world that is around her, are harsh and crude.

Rathie the main character in the film becomes a victim of a social catastrophe when she comes to know her lover Shantha is a married man. But she is too late as she is already three months pregnant when she gets to know it. However she has no right to abort her pregnancy according to the Penal Code in Sri Lanka: abortions are illegal. Nor can she face the world with an 'illegitimate' child, society being so averse to illigitimacy - at least publicly.

The unholy gaps in law and in social values leaves the young woman in a dilemma she could never get out of. And the end of this tragedy in her life, turns out to be the raging climax of the film. A moment that no one will encounter in life.

The film opens with a scene where Rathie enters a reputed medical centre in the city to obtain her urine report. The report is 'positive' proving she is pregant. Then she attempts to cross the road with this in her mind dreaming  of her future. The film unfolds itself there as though through her dream. While dream-crossing the road she escapes a near fatal accident. And this shock awakes her from her dream, which brings the film to an end.

At the end Rathie wakes up from her dream with a symbolic message that spells out for the next generation a more tolerant future in a society where many more girls like Rathie would live. A cinematic voyage of two hours between dreams and reality permit the audience to realise the difference between awakening life through dreams and pushing life to sleep within reality.

* * *

Heartbeat of the filmmaker

"In the year 1999, it was just another working day for me. Also  working as a documentary director, my assignment was to do a survey on garment factory workers. The area was a export promotion industrial zone in the north of Colombo city. As the client of that project was the Bureau of Women's Affairs in Sri Lanka, I had to lay more emphasis on female workers.

"And most of them were young girls; below the age of 25 years. So, as a young directress I knew it was not a hard task for me to get friendly with them and to fish out the problems hidden in their lives. Expecting some information and incidents to find, I asked my crew members to carry a camera with them. Yet none thought that camera would have to capture the most distressing story ever heard by any of us. There were many women who were talking about the impact on them of the new and changing socio-economic pattern after 1978 in Sri Lanka. And there were lots of stories for them to share with us.

"So we moved from one to the other, collecting these information and stories the whole day through. And suddenly we came across an unusual character not by her admission but from the stories recited by people around. She grew into a full and complete women before us, with all the details retold by the other people who had been with her in her past. And ultimatley she was the one who turned into the main character of this film. She took us on a path that opened up a new dialogue that was never traversed by any of us through our life before. Though she was an unseen human being, another living example had been moving with us at that very moment. It was the child that she had given birth to.

"The child she gave birth to having concealed it all through her pregancy. And the child was to be aborted and destroyed in a society that believes an illegitimate child carries a stigma throughout life. And that very child was a four year old innocent little girl hanging around us, ignorantly listening to all that we discussed. Not knowing anything about that cruel world we were talking about, she became quite friendly and sang a beautiful nursery rhyme for us about the birds, bees and butterflies in her small world. At the end of the day all were happy. Everything went well in our survey because there were enough material collected by us. Among all these material, I was carrying an uneasy load back home in my mind. A load that made me uneasy and even disturbed my whole setup.

"The unseen women kept nudging me all the time, to do justice to the mental load that I was hiding in me. But I had to struggle with it for over a year. A year of mental stress and pain moulding her into a living character. To gather all the shattered pieces that lay in my mind about her, into a bundle of papers. And at the end, having nurtured her in my mind, I painstakingly evolved her into Rathie in Sulang Kirilli, doing at least some justice to my conscience."

- Inoka Sathyangani

Olantha: "Joy in teaching"

Olantha Ambrose has been studying the violin since the age of three. At age 7 she represented the United States at the Suzuki International Music Festival in Munich, Germany. She has participated in many national music festivals including Interlochen Arts and Aspen Music festivals. She was concert Mistress of the California State University of Northridge Youth Orchestra, as well as a member of the American Youth Symphony under the direction of the late Maestro, Mehli Mehta. She has studied with world-renowned teacher Manuel Copinsky, Los Angeles Philharmonic Concert Master Alex Treger, and Mehli Mehta.

She has performed at prestigious events such as the Young Musicians Foundation, and the Los Angeles Press Club. She is presently a member of various community orchestras, including the Downey and Torrance Symphonies and the Pacific Palisades Community Orchestra. Ambrose also plays in local chamber music ensembles when time permits. She was the winner of the California Music Teachers Association competition of Violin in her age category and is featured in Who's Who in Music? Apart from her extensive formal classical music training she has also been trained and certified in the Suzuki and Orff methods of teaching music. She holds a B.A. in law and society and a M.A. in education.

Three years ago, Olantha Ambrose began volunteering as a violin teacher after school at the Walgrove Elementary School in Venice, California (where she was teaching Kindergarten). Supported by the American Youth Symphony she was able to obtain about 20 violins and music stands. She recruited about 20 children in the third and fourth grade. In addition, she made herself available to kids during recess and lunch for additional one-on-one instruction.

Her violin group performed several times for the school, at school functions and holidays, at UCLA's Royce Hall, and at local malls during Christmas. Furthermore, some of her students were able to obtain music scholarships from the Los Angeles School District towards music lessons or the purchase of their own instrument.

Others have received full-tuition scholarships to the New Roads School in Santa Monica, Ca. for their middle school education. Ambrose and her students were recently featured on the CBS television network where Olantha herself was recognised as a "Hometown Hero" due to her hard work and dedication to teaching. Her students have also performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion with the American Youth Symphony, and at an after-Oscar party in Hollywood, California, and several other venues in the greater Los Angeles Area. Presently,  Ambrose has expanded her programme to encompass other schools in the Venice area, including Beethoven Elementary and Grandview Elementary.

 Ambrose found that as her programme expanded, there were more and more kids on waiting lists to joint her small violin group. Therefore, because of her love and dedication to teaching violin, she has decided to continue developing and expanding her programme. Ambrose's vision is to afford more children the opportunity to participate and appreciate the joy of music and in so doing to experience the fulfilment of self-esteem and achievement.

Says Olantha "I have found joy in teaching the violin and conducting camps for kids, and wish to give something back to Sri Lanka by helping to spread peace and love through music to kids from different backgrounds. I feel that my camps can bring kids together in their love for music. I think that right now in Sri Lanka, peace is in everybody's minds and hearts, and what better medium than music to reach out.".

Olantha will be conducting a summer camp at Wycherly International School from July 15 to August 15. Participants include 19 children from 10 schools - government, private and international. Said Olantha "The kids are practicing like crazy, it is so heartening to see them so enthusiastic. We are working towards a mini-concert to be held at the Russian Cultural Centre on August 15 at 7 p.m".