The Tamil Film Maker in France:

The Island

The Film Maker
August 28, 2010, 12:00 pm
Pradeepan Raveendran

Pradeepan Raveendran was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka in July 1981. He attended Jaffna Hindu College until he was 15 years old, when he and his family suffered forced displacement due to the war and had to move to his mother’s birthplace in Negombo, Sri Lanka. Pradeepan attended Wijeyaratnam Central College in Negombo.
In 2000, he began to focus on developing his childhood interest in both film and photography. He became a self-taught photographer and began to obsessively study film as well. Due to the heightening civil strife in Sri Lanka at that time, he applied for and was granted asylum status in France. He arrived in Paris as a refugee in 2004. In Paris, he became a part of the Tamil alternative political and literary circles, writing articles for Uyirinizhal (Shadows of the Soul), an independent Tamil political and literary magazine. He remains on the board of Uyirinizhal.
During this time he also became a serious professional photographer and was selected to stage 2 exhibitions, one in Paris and the other in Berlin. These exhibitions were contemporary documents of the lives of refugees in France; showing the textures of the dark spaces they occupy on the periphery of French society.
Pradeepan continues to live as a refugee in Paris.
A Synopsis
11min/2010/Sri Lanka - France/Tamil with English subtitles/RED ONE 4K

In 2010, Pradeepan completed his second short film called "Shadows of Silence", about the life in exile of a family man with three small children and one wife. This story picks up on an earlier theme of Pradeepan’s work on the border-life of refugees. The film is a deeply felt look at the personal torment of an exile and the permanent presence of pain and alienation in the depths of his heart. It shows how his bleak dreams and illusions echo instead the profound isolation of a shattered mind, driving him to contemplate ending his life.
Awards: "Shadows of Silence" premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2010, as part of its prestigious ‘Director’s Fortnight’, dedicated to honouring alternative and independent film globally. It is due to be screened at many more festivals in 2010 and 2011.