‘Talking With the Wind’: A song for the mermaids

Films are made every day. Mistakes too are made every day. ‘Diyakiduriyanta Aebarthu Atha’ (Talking With the Wind) directed by Jayashika Padmasiri is a film that juxtaposes fiction with reality while blurring the boundaries between these two. As the Sinhala title of the film suggests the film has vacancies for mermaids, as the whole film is a song for the mermaids. 

This film is an experimental feature film that talks about cinema, how films are made, how lives are made, how in life mistakes are made, how when shooting a film mistakes are made, but how the mistakes in films can be reversed unlike in the ‘real life’ where the mistakes become the reality…

‘Talking With the Wind’ is a metafilm about making a film where the director gets lost inside her film without any way to come out of the creation, and the story of a young actress who wants to escape into the film to forget her living reality. 

Nothing that happened during the shoot of this film at the film set was pre-planned, and everything that happened on the film set was shot and captured on reel: all the struggles behind the film, live mistakes, accidents, arguments, fights, betrayals and friendship unions that took place in the set within the crew and the cast members of the film is the actual film. 

This reality is juxtaposed with three fictional and scripted short films. This ‘film-poem’ is based on human emotions, as the story (plot), characters, surrealism and the dream-quality in this film are all based on the heartfelt human emotions of people living lonely, secluded and pain-stricken lives devoid of love and hope. 

‘Talking With the Wind’ is a multi-camera work where the Director of Photography (DOP) is the talented cinematographer known for his poetic, cinematic and magical camerawork Channa Deshapriya. Rest of the cameras are handled by his team of assistants who are also Directors of Photography (DOP) known for their talents: Vishvajith Karunarathne, Kularuwan Gamage, Striner Adams, Chandana Dharmapriya and Sanjaya Mendis. 

The main cast includes Dhananjani Bandara, Thusitha Laknath, Nadeeka Bandara, Prarthana Samadhi, Anula Haduwala, Sumudu Dharmawardhana and Gayathri Ekanayake. The film Editor is Ajith Ramanayake, Music composter Nadeeka Guruge, Makeup Artist Priyantha Siri Kumara, Art Director Rohan Samaradiwakara and Graphics done by Chathraweeraman and Nandana Sitinamaluwa.