Of Wars, Scars, and Celluloid Memory: Representations of War in Sri Lankan Cinema (2000–10)

The Sri Lankan film industry, which many describe as modest and ailing, has mirrored the country’s past and recent ethno-politics, founded on the Sinhala/Other distinction. Innumerable conflicts have indeed marked Sri Lanka’s colonial and post-independence periods, including the 1915 Pogroms, the communal riots of 1956, and, more recently, the protracted war against terrorism that ended in 2010. It is in light of this troubled inheritance that this chapter aims to discuss representations of the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict (1983–2010) through the medium of film and to probe the question of art forms in relation to one of the first..