LITTLE JAFFNA
Genre
Drama
Running time
97 minutes
Year
2024
Language
French and Tamil
Subtitle
English and Arabic
Country
France
Director
Lawrence Valin
Bio
Producer
Simon Bleuzé, Marc Bordure
Cast
Puviraj Raveendran, Marilou Assilloux, Lawrence Valin, Vela Ramamoorthy, Radikaa Sarathkumar
Scriptwriter
Lawrence Valin, Marlène Poste, Malysone Bovorasmy, Gaëlle Macé, Arthur Beaupère, Yacine Badday
“You’re not in Paris any more. You’re in Little Jaffna.” During the civil war in Sri Lanka that raged from 1983 until 2009, Tamils in the Parisian district of Little Jaffna were forced to contribute towards buying arms for Tamil Tigers. Aya, ostensibly a grocer, leads the ruthless extortion gang that bleeds the community dry. Michael, a straight-shooting young police officer with Tamil roots, is sent to infiltrate the organization but as he befriends the gang’s members at terrible risk to himself, he starts to see the issue in a more nuanced way and feels his loyalties shifting. Valin combines the theatricality of Tamil movies with the hard edge of new French cinema, using largely non-professional actors, in this spectacular thriller.
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