ENTERTAINMENT

TIFF 2024: Little Jaffna

Posted on October 21, 2024 | by Priya Chopra

Little Jaffna is Lawrence Valin’s debut film in Tamil and French. It is based on a short by Valin back in 2018. Valin not only directs, but also stars in the film as a lead character. Valin plays a police officer from a Tamil family in Paris, who has to infiltrate a local criminal group that is sending money to the Eelam liberation movement in Sri Lanka. The film stars Lawrence Valin, Puviraj Raveendran, Vela Ramamoorthy, and Kawsie Chandra. The film had its debut at the Venice Film Festival right before it came to TIFF 2024.  The movie is about identity, diaspora, family, community, and conflict.

The particular area of central Paris is known informally as Little Jaffna, which is the capital city of the Northern province of Sri Lanka. The civil war in Sri Lanka was from 1983 to 2009, and the movie takes place during that time as well. Valin worked on the Cannes Palme D’Or winner “Dheepan” back in 2015, and was heavily influenced by the film in relation to the Sri Lankan Tamil French experience.

Valin has found cinema to be an extremely limiting space for French Tamil actors. “All the time, when I get some casting stuff, it’s like, you have to play the Indian,” Valin recounted. “And I was like, I’m just not Indian. I’m French too.” Valin knew there was a gap in what he wanted to do, versus the roles that were out there for him. He knew that directing would fill the gap, along with writing. He challenged himself to become an actor, director, and writer all at once.

The short film Little Jaffna was his graduation project from the La Fémis film school. Valin had a chance to work with the lead actor from Dheepan on this short named Jesuthasan Anthonythasan. This short cost him about $27,800, and he knew it was a story he wanted to tell the world. It was challenging, but he knew that he also wanted to get more non-actors involved in his future projects down the road. The feature Little Jaffna was intended to connect with both Tamil audiences, as well as an international community. “I need to put the war in a way to make everyone understand what is going on” Valin said. Standing ovations, and critical acclaim across Toronto for the premiere of Little Jaffna filled Valin’s spirit with enthusiasm at TIFF 2024.

Identity is a huge part of the film, and the challenge of being both French and Tamil is close to Valin’s heart. He wanted to connect both cultures and communities, and this film is a bridge for him to do just that. Valin greatly admires Vijay and Rajnikanth for their acting skills, and the unique part is that this film includes both professional actors, as well as non-actors who have done an excellent job portraying their characters.

Displacement has been a common theme at TIFF, and Valin has portrayed the gang culture within the Little Jaffna community in Paris authentically. The film is important to not only understand the Sri Lankan civil war, but the experience of Tamils living in Paris trying to call France home, in the context of a different language, culture, religion, and way of life. The gang culture created a sense of belonging, and home for many that were displaced over the years.

Valin says: I grew up telling myself: "I’m French". I belong to the first generation of Tamils born in France, and my mother always told me that I had to integrate. Almost to the point of erasing my Tamil side: I was French, so I had to be like other French people. On both sides, I was told to choose: you’re either French or Tamil. But choosing either one of them felt like a betrayal. So I wanted to convey that inner conflict in the film, but without the protagonist ever really choosing because, ultimately, the reality is, he’s both. The film explores this dual heritage. When I came to French film as an actor 13 years ago, it was made clear very quickly that I wasn’t French enough to play certain parts. And in India, I’m not Tamil enough to play parts over there. So, at a certain point, I wondered where my place was. It’s that space of dual heritage that I wanted to create and explore through this film, with a main character who was French but who had my skin colour.”

Vela Ramamoorthy, Radikaa Sarathkumar, and Puviraj Raveendram have all done an excellent job in their respective roles. We spend a lifetime finding our place in the world, almost like following a good recipe that works only for us as individuals. It takes us a lifetime to discover the perfect amount of ingredients that make up who we are, and Lawrence Valin has done an excellent in bringing Little Jaffna to life for an international audience as he discovers more of who he is as a French Tamil from Sri Lanka.

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