Delving into the heart of Jaffna for his role in Funny Boy
Things picked up slowly as they do in the Big Apple and in the past ten years Shivantha has done as many as 110 projects- including film and theatre and followed his passion for music and songwriting.
His two popular albums Words from Not Long Ago (2014) and Clarity (2017) with Kyle Cassel and Walter Parks (Richie Havens) were recorded at the famous Kaleidoscope Studios. Both are available on his website shivantha.com.
The two movies he produced were directed by his friend Michael Cutrone. The first movie was born of Shivantha’s penchant for the martial arts- being a student of Jeet Kune Do. Named Death Trail, it is the tale of a brutal hitman (played by Shivantha) who finally thrusts his fist into something more insidious than anything he anticipated.
Anonymous- his second film produced with Michael and friend and writer Owen Fitzpatrick is the story of a recovering addict struggling to stay clean when meeting another addict plunges him into drama.
Michael and Shivantha plan to set their next film in Sri Lanka, while finishing up a Rockumentary (a small music documentary) on Shivantha’s New York saga.
Working under the demanding
Deepa Mehta was an unforgettable privilege, says Shivantha. Funny
Boy evolved organically on the set-Deepa incisively shaping the way the story meandered- the cast having to shift and change, and accept her candid feedback.
But 90% of the work was done prior to the shooting. Shivantha had to morph into a young Tamil man in his twenties driven by zeal for his country and his people. To find Jegan, Shivantha had to go deep into a once genteel peninsula of blue heat hazes and inner courtyard houses- he learnt Jaffna Tamil and dived into a troubled bloody history- from the Sinhala-Only
Bill, standardization, and the riots which flare up in the middle of Arjie’s story.
Shivantha, old enough to have the 1983 riots burnt into his mind (Lakmahal housed many a Tamil refugee) is nostalgic for an old (pre-riots) Colombo when neighbours from a hotch-potch of ethnicities would ‘just drop in for a drink’ on the verandah.
Jegan was a complex role to play. The injustices he had suffered as a member of a minority would whip up a need for justice. In Funny Boy, Jegan joins the separatist Tamil Tigers out of the purest of motives- yet is the one to suffer for their agendas.
Shivantha needed all his history homework to immerse himself in that world.
Some roles in the film would simply explode in brilliance when gouged off the black and white page. The legendary Seema Biswas playing Ammachchi the grandmother was so charismatic that the role became a scintillating centre instead of a matriarchal stereotype as in the book.
They also had to recreate a Colombo with much fewer (and ‘Sri’-plated) cars and had to find retro venues. Such landmarks as the Kollupitiya Green Cabin were gone and they had to scour for atmospheric venues in and around Colombo.
Richmond Castle, Kalutara did for Arjie’s lover Shehan’s shell of an old mansion in Colombo 7, while jail scenes were shot at the Angoda Institute of Mental Health where the team could feel the oppressive though still and silent atmosphere and the eternal sadness echoing within those spacious halls.
The silence brought home the pathos of the marginalized- the voiceless. “It happens when you are a minority in a society that is majoritydriven,” Shivantha says. If you are gay in a society that is very homophobic it can be stifling.
Shivantha is keeping his fingers crossed that Sri Lanka will get to see Funny Boy, even if its bold telling of race relations and homosexuality may seem a bit overwhelming for the local screen.