Presented in the closing slot of International Film Critics’ Week, hosted by the 81st Venice Film Festival, Little Jaffna [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Lawrence Valin
scheda film] is French director Lawrence Valin’s debut feature film.

Cineuropa: Where did you get the idea for an infiltration film set in Paris’ Tamil community?
My parents are from Sri Lanka, I grew up in that culture and it was important for me to talk about that from my very first feature film, because there aren’t many films in France that go into it. There’s only been Dheepan [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
Q&A: Jacques Audiard
scheda film] by Jacques Audiard. As for the genre side of things, it helped me to make my subject universal because I didn’t want to make a documentary. With a thriller, a suspense film, I can say a little bit about the history of the Tamil community and the armed conflict which saw them face-off against the Sri Lankan government for 25 years. It was a war which didn’t get much media attention but which I was immersed in for my entire youth. I wanted it to be a genre film to speak to the highest number of viewers as possible, in the hope that any of them who were interested might then find out more about it.

The inside man is torn between his undercover assignment and the reality of reconnecting with his Tamil identity.
It’s exactly that. It all comes from my own experience. I grew up telling myself: "I’m French". I belong to the first generation of Tamils born in France, and my mother always told me that I had to integrate. Almost to the point of erasing my Tamil side: I was French, so I had to be like other French people. On both sides, I was told to choose: you’re either French or Tamil. But choosing either one of them felt like a betrayal. So I wanted to convey that inner conflict in the film, but without the protagonist ever really choosing because, ultimately, the reality is, he’s both. The film explores this dual heritage. When I came to French film as an actor 13 years ago, it was made clear very quickly that I wasn’t French enough to play certain parts. And in India, I’m not Tamil enough to play parts over there. So, at a certain point, I wondered where my place was. It’s that space of dual heritage that I wanted to create and explore through this film, with a main character who was French but who had my skin colour.

What about the distinctive decisions you made in terms of the film’s form, which blends a western film style with an Indian one…
I grew up surrounded by highly politicised Kollywood cinema from South India, so it’s one of my inspirations. To give an analogy, it’s a bit like if Tarantino appeared in a Scorsese film. In Tamil cinema, there’s a crazy side: it almost feels like a manga sometimes, or it’s really slowed-down; there’s dancing, surrealist fighting, etc. There are also codes within Korean cinema that really inspire me. If I’d pushed the Kollywood boundaries a little, where, when the hero is hit, he flies six metres, the film would have become a comedy for western viewers. For Tamil viewers, who take things quite literally, he’d always be a hero. So, in the editing phase, I played with the boundaries at various points in order to find that fine line.

You yourself play the lead role. How did you pull the cast together?
Almost all of them are non-professionals, because there aren’t many actors of Tamil descent in France. But I went looking for three professional actors in India, namely Vela Ramamoorthy and especially Radikaa Sarathkumar who’s a huge star over there, the equivalent of Isabelle Huppert in France. They invested themselves in the film because of its political side, and it was lucky for me because I was then able to benefit from their experience and make the film even more credible for the Tamil community in France. As for me, as an actor, I’m usually asked to play immigrant roles and I often have to act like I’m trying to speak French, with an accent. I wanted to break away from that, so my character speaks proper French. I wanted to make a film which people like me, hailing from a dual culture, could identify with.