Baddegama

I have wanted to make this film for ten years. It took eighteen months of hard work, exhausting work emotionnaly, mentally and physically. The diting took a long time, too. I feel the construction is very important and the final architecture of a film appears more when editing tha when writing the scenario. In the film we can feel the force of the book, of the impossible economic conditions the villagers live in and of the terrifying surroundinf of the jungle.
« Is this what one hundred and fifty years of imperialism has brought to these people? » is the kind of thought the film should provoke. Most tragic of all, however, is that after forty years of independance the villagers’ life has not at all improved. Lester James PERIES