Dying Dreams

Sudath Abeysiriwardena’s “Dying Dreams” explores the post-civil war society in Sri Lanka. The film discusses the glorification of the war for political gain and how this atrocious conflict shaped Sri Lanka’s collective consciousness, taking deep roots into its very psyche. The core theme is the tragic story of the present older generation’s subconscious act of passing on the tainted legacy to the future generation. 

Dying Dreams came into existence through the efforts of Youth Creates &  Agenda 14 organization, which held a short film creation initiative dubbed ‘Breaking frames, making films.’ The initiative revolved around conducting a series of sessions for a number of amateur filmmakers and producing short films based on their scripts. Sudath, who directed the film, wrote the script, and I, as the Director of Photography, helped him write the screenplay. We filmed Dying Dreams in June 2015. 

In creating the film, we used special effects to capture explosions within a closed space. We created a conceptual war zone indoors with great success. Dying Dreams was first screened in Sri Lanka in the latter part of 2015 at the National Film Co-Oparation’s movie theatre, along with five other short films. 

The film was also screened at international film festivals in Poland, India, Nepal, and Pakistan and clinched a number of awards.