By Naman Ramachandran
Venice Film Festival presents impressive line-up – with some controversy
Lawrence Valin's directorial debut "Little Jaffna" will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The first clip from the film has been revealed.
The film, which Valin also co-wrote and stars in, explores the Tamil diaspora experience in France through the prism of gang culture in the area of central Paris informally known as Little Jaffna, after the capital of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province. It is set against the backdrop of the Sri Lankan Civil War, which ravaged the island from 1983 to 2009.
Valin, a French-Tamil filmmaker, developed the project after his experiences acting and directing short films. His journey to “Little Jaffna” was influenced by his involvement with Jacques Audiard’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning film “Dheepan” (2015), which also dealt with the Sri Lankan Tamil experience in France.
