Re:Vision: Gehenu Lamai (The Girls)
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About
Sumitra Peries’s Gehenu Lamai [The Girls] —the first feature directed by a woman in Sri Lanka—is a close observation of a life shrinking. So much weight is placed on girls worldwide, and the girls of Gehenu Lamai are no different. Expected to care-give, earn, and behave respectably no matter the cost, the central girls of the film, sisters Kusum and Soma, bear much responsibility. Despite very different approaches to their constraints, some outcomes cannot be avoided.
In the starring role of Kusum, Vasanthi Chathurani’s debut performance is almost painfully tender. Peries’s camera frames/jails her young face in a variety of beautiful close-ups as we watch Kusum’s stunning resolve slowly hobble her over the course of the film.
Beyond the delicate, doomed love story at the heart of the film, this tale of girls focuses on the intensity and challenges of deep sisterly and schoolmate bonds. Love in this film can be found all around, but sometimes love is not enough when classism and familial expectations come to bear on young lives. — Kathy Rose O’Regan
Restored by Film Heritage Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata in association with the Lester James Peries and Sumitra Peries Foundation. Restoration was based on a combined dupe negative and 2 distribution prints preserved at the National Film Corporation of Sri Lanka. DCP provided by Film Heritage Foundation.
Gehenu Lamai [The Girls] will screen with the following short:
TWO (Satyajit Ray, India, 1964) 12m, DCP
Along with The Girls, we have the boys: Two, in particular. One well-to-do, one less-so. One indoors, the other outside. Called a “film fable” by legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray, the dialogue-free short was commissioned by the Public Broadcasting Service in the U.S. and aired on PBS as part of a Esso World Theater trilogy in the mid-1960s. — Jonathan Marlow
The Academy Film Archive restored Two in 2016, one of many preservations and restorations of Ray’s work since his honorary Lifetime Achievement award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1992.
Runtime
2h 5m
Year
1978
Director
Sumitra Peries
Format
DCP
Country
Sri Lanka
Language
Sinhala with English subtitles
First Showing
September 26, 2026
Categories
RE:VISION — FESTIVAL OF RESTORATION AND REDISCOVERY
,
Featured
In the starring role of Kusum, Vasanthi Chathurani’s debut performance is almost painfully tender. Peries’s camera frames/jails her young face in a variety of beautiful close-ups as we watch Kusum’s stunning resolve slowly hobble her over the course of the film.
Beyond the delicate, doomed love story at the heart of the film, this tale of girls focuses on the intensity and challenges of deep sisterly and schoolmate bonds. Love in this film can be found all around, but sometimes love is not enough when classism and familial expectations come to bear on young lives. — Kathy Rose O’Regan
Restored by Film Heritage Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata in association with the Lester James Peries and Sumitra Peries Foundation. Restoration was based on a combined dupe negative and 2 distribution prints preserved at the National Film Corporation of Sri Lanka. DCP provided by Film Heritage Foundation.
Gehenu Lamai [The Girls] will screen with the following short:
TWO (Satyajit Ray, India, 1964) 12m, DCP
Along with The Girls, we have the boys: Two, in particular. One well-to-do, one less-so. One indoors, the other outside. Called a “film fable” by legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray, the dialogue-free short was commissioned by the Public Broadcasting Service in the U.S. and aired on PBS as part of a Esso World Theater trilogy in the mid-1960s. — Jonathan Marlow
The Academy Film Archive restored Two in 2016, one of many preservations and restorations of Ray’s work since his honorary Lifetime Achievement award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1992.
Runtime
2h 5m
Year
1978
Director
Sumitra Peries
Format
DCP
Country
Sri Lanka
Language
Sinhala with English subtitles
First Showing
September 26, 2026
Categories
RE:VISION — FESTIVAL OF RESTORATION AND REDISCOVERY
,
Featured
