4K Restored Gehanu Lam (The Girls) in Melbourne

Online tickets will be relaesed on 11th August. Please contact 1300 973 978 for more information or pre release tickets

The extraordinary debut of trailblazing Sri Lankan filmmaker Sumitra Peries is a poignant, pointed study of two sisters battling class and gender restrictions.

Kusum (Vasanthi Chathurani), a shy girl born into a religious family, is driven to strive beyond her social status, in which she’s resigned to the position of ‘basketwoman’s daughter’. A dutiful student, she engages in classroom debates on Sri Lankan national sovereignty and politics, and soon catches the eye – and affections – of affluent classmate Nimal. Meanwhile, Kusum’s sister, Soma, also yearns to escape, but her dreams of becoming a beauty queen butt up against cruel realities.

Sumitra Peries – the wife of Lester Peries (considered the ‘father of Sri Lankan cinema’), and an acclaimed editor and director in her own right – was her country’s first female filmmaker; and The Girls, her hugely impressive debut, was honoured as the Outstanding Film of the Year at the 1978 London Film Festival. Shot in luminous black-and-white and rich with empathy, the film lyrically adapts Karunasena Jayalath’s novel of the same name, and is blessed with a tender leading turn from first-time actor Chathurani. Once lost to time, The Girls was championed in Mark Cousins’s documentary series Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema (MIFF 2020) before being fully restored in this gorgeous 4K print, which premiered at Cannes in May.

“Peries zooms in and out like in a Robert Altman or Nicolas Roeg film. She creates dazzling images and uncertain emotions … Why did we forget her?” – Sight & Sound

Restored by Film Heritage Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in association with the Lester James Peries and Sumitra Peries Foundation.