Director’s Statement
When the Tsunami hit Sri Lanka in 2004, the scope of the tragedy was far too
overwhelming for me to take in. As the media spotlight shone brighter and more
incessantly on my former homeland, I pulled farther and farther away—even turning
off the news when the topic came up.

A year later I traveled to Sri Lanka with my uncle who had lost his wife and daughter
in the tsunami while on Christmas holidays. This time, the feeling of loss was on a scale
that was intimate and personal—rather than epic and bewildering. It was in the quiet
moments with my uncle, when hardly a word was uttered between us, when his gaze
seemed to be both outward and inward simultaneously, that I began to understand what
loss really meant. And even though I’ve never personally experienced loss on that scale,
I could understand somehow and I was filled with empathy. When I came back to Canada,
I knew I wanted to make a film about that state of being—because although it was tragic,
there was something beautiful and deeply human about that state. I wanted to create a
character that would bring audiences into that space; a space full of humility and compassion,
where the lines between right and wrong, good and bad, love and hate, joy and sorrow,
even life and death are blurred.

Rohan Fernando
September 2010