“Republic of Amnesia” Film screening on Tuesday, April 7 at 6:00pm, at Williard Straight Theatre, Cornell Cinema

 

                     Republic of Amnesia | Official Trailer

Young activists lead Sri Lanka’s 2022 uprising, toppling an authoritarian president but can fragile hope survive in a country built on forgetting?

Directed by Kannan Arunasalam, Republic of Amnesia follows the rise and fall of Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya (“The Struggle”) the youth-led protest movement that forced authoritarian president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country in 2022. At its heart are young activists like Melani, Buwanaka and Jeana, who organize marches, face arrest, and confront a political system built to endure. As they challenge a powerful dynasty, their struggle raises a deeper question: can fragile hope survive in a country built on forgetting?

As the spirit of the Aragalaya ripples across Asia, inspiring youth movements from Bangladesh to Indonesia, the film looks beyond the moment itself. It asks what remains and what is lost when a movement fades, and suggests that the struggle for democracy lies not only in institutions or leaders, but in the stories a society chooses to preserve.

Filmmaker Kannan Arunasalam will join for a conversation after the film with Daniel Bass, Senior Program Manager of the South Asia Program.

Free admission! Sponsored by the South Asia Program at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.

About the filmmaker
Kannan Arunasalam is a British-Sri Lankan filmmaker working across documentary film and moving-image installation. His work explores memory, political resistance, and the legacies of conflict and colonialism. His installation The Tent (2019) was presented in a solo exhibition at Yorkshire Contemporary. His documentary Sri Lanka’s Rebel Wife (2021) was shortlisted for Best Documentary at the DIG Investigative Film Awards. He recently completed two feature documentaries: Republic of Amnesia (2025, UK/Sri Lanka), examining Sri Lanka’s 2022 Aragalaya protest movement, and Possible Landscapes (2025, US/Trinidad & Tobago), which premiered at the BlackStar Film Festival and explores intergenerational environmental experience.

In Sinhala, Tamil and English with English subtitles. More at republicofamnesia.film.

Part of our “Campus Collaborations” and “Doc Spots” series.

Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation Awards Kannan Arunasalam of Sri Lanka 2013 Prize for Documentary Short Film, Opens 2014 Grant Call for Entries

In its inaugural debut, The Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation for Documentary Photography & Film today awarded Sri Lankan journalist and filmmaker Kannan Arunasalam its first annual prize for best documentary ‘short-short’ film. The foundation also announced the opening of the 2014 call for entries for outstanding work in documentary photography and documentary film.

Selected by the executive board of the foundation, Kannan Arunasalam will receive a US$5,000 prize for best documentary short film. His film, The Story of One, documents the lives of a priest and a boy as it attempts to trace what happened to them 22 years after their disappearance during the time of violence at the hands of security forces and among strife between Tamil Tigers and Muslims gangs in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka.

Via http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/manuel-rivera-ortiz-foundation-awards-kannan-arunasalam-sri-lanka-2013-prize-documentary-1854174.htm

source: www.marketwired.com