Posts Categorized: Arts & Culture

TG: Neelira – An Important Step

With a runtime of ninety minutes, ‘Neelira’ is a taut and tense thriller.  . by Gop Selva, Tamil Guardian, London, April 2, 2026 . Having worked as an assistant director for Balu Mahendra and Karthik Subbaraj, Someetharan – who has previously created documentaries – has now directed his first narrative feature film. ‘Neelira’ is a… Read more »

Cinema Express: A Wedding, a War, and a Wounded History

by Akshay Kumar, Cinema Express, Mumbai, April 2, 2026 Neelira Movie Review: Neelira may not offer easy answers or closure, but it compels us to sit with discomfort, ensuring we hear stories that should neither be forgotten nor simplified When the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) were deployed in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan Tamils,… Read more »

TOI: Neelira Movie Review: Small-scale War Drama with Real Grit

by Abhinav Subramanian, Times of India, Mumbai, April 2, 2026 Neelira Movie Synopsis: A wedding eve in 1988 Sri Lanka turns into a hostage standoff when Indian Army soldiers occupy a family’s home overnight. The best hostage films don’t need explosions. They need a room, a locked door, and people who can’t afford to blink. Director Someetharan,… Read more »

M.S. Subbulakshmi in the ‘Meera’ Movie‘s 80th Anniversary

by Sachi Sri Kantha, December 9, 2025  Introduction This year marks the 80th anniversary of the release of the Tamil version of the Meera movie on November 3rd 1945 in Chennai. Also, December 11th marks the 21th death anniversary of Carnatic Music diva Madurai Shanmugavadivu (M.S.) Subbulakshmi (1916-2004). It also happens to be the birthday… Read more »

The Story of Eelam Tamils ​​in South Indian Cinema

by I.V. Mahasenan in his blog, May 12, 2025 [translated into English from the original Tamil by Google Translate with corrections by the Editor.]   The Tamilaham (Tamil Nadu) and Eelam-Tamil relationship is essential to the existence of Tamil national politics. Since the Sri Lankan and Indian governments have interpreted the rise of Tamil nationalism… Read more »

Paris-based Thriller Offers Fresh Inside Take on French-Tamil Community

Writer, actor and director Lawrence Valin says that in Little Jaffna he wanted to ‘show new role models’ by Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian, UK, May 4, 2025 It has been hailed as one of the most innovative and surprising French gangster films this year: a suspense movie that tears through Paris’s Tamil neighbourhood. The police… Read more »

Little Jaffna – A Tale of Dual Identity

Little Jaffna – A Tale of Dual Identity by Krishna Selvaseelan, Tamil Guardian, London, November 11, 2024 See also an interview with the director. Lawrence Valin’s ‘Little Jaffna,’ a feature-length debut based on his short film, delivers a compelling story about identity. Set in France, the film follows Michael, a Tamil-French police officer, assigned to… Read more »

Sri Lankan Fare Takes Center Stage Uptown

Lungi debuts on the Upper East Side this week by Caroline Shin, Eater NY, September 18, 2024 While Sri Lankan food has made a mark in Staten Island, it’s moving beyond the borough to Manhattan’s Upper East Side with Lungi. Co-owner Albin Vincent is flipping Imli, his neighborhood spot for modern Indian food, into Lungi, with a focus on… Read more »

Books about Tamils & Sri Lanka

Listmaker unknown, Goodreads, accessed August 8, 2024 Readers are allowed to add to the list.  What would YOU add? [Editor] “My favourite fiction and non-fiction books about Tamils and the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.” 1 Anil’s Ghost by Michael Ondaatje 2 Love Marriage by V.V. Ganeshananthan (Goodreads Author)   2 Tamil Tigress by Niromi de… Read more »

‘How Were We Done For in This war?’

Three poems by women poets from Sri Lanka ask the same question Written in Tamil, the poems have been translated by N Kalyan Raman. by Sivaramani, Paamathi & Anar, Scroll.in, March 6, 2019 The stress of a night during wartime Sivaramani The stress of a night during wartime will make adults out of our children…. Read more »

The Articulation of Violence in the Poetry by Tamil Women (1981-2009)

Speaking in Many Tongues by Aparna Eswaran, Kerala Council for Historical Research, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, KCHR Working Paper Series, VOL – II, November 2021 KCHR Working Paper Series_Vol II_03 Nov 2021_Final Abstract The three decade long war in Sri Lanka fought over competing ethnic nationalisms was a period of grave human rights violations and of ‘unspeakable’… Read more »

Two Poems by V.I.S. Jayapalan

translated from the Tamil by Shash Trevett, Harvard Review Online, Boston, MA, USA, December 5, 2023 One Night in Frankfurt Packed like litter in the belly of a pregnant sow, a group of men from Jaffna lie seemingly lifeless in a room in the heart of Frankfurt— their bodies curled in blankets wrapped tight like… Read more »

Caste System in Medieval Tamil Nadu

Not Manusmriti, British—caste system in medieval Tamil Nadu solidified after Cholas fell by Anirudh Kanisetti, ThePrint.in, March 24, 2024 Middle castes reveal a complicated social history. Caste is rooted in politics, not just religion Illustration of the castes and tribes of South India | Representational image | Commons As always with India’s historical debates, the… Read more »

Arwi: The Lost Language of the Arab-Tamils

by Kamala Thiagarajan, BBC, London, February 12, 2024 Coastal towns across southern India still reveal how medieval travellers once used the power of language to further trade and forge deep connections. One warm summer evening in 2008, when Mohamed Sultan Baqavi was a 26-year-old student at Arabic College in the South Indian town of Vellore,… Read more »

How to Capture Birds of Freedom

Picturing Tamil Women at War  by Vindhya Buthpitiya, Trans Asia Photography, Vol. 13, Issue 1, May 1, 2023 https://doi.org/10.1215/21582025-10365016 Abstract This article examines the uses of images of women fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during and after the Sri Lankan civil war (1983–2009) to explore the contrasting mobilizations of visual representations of… Read more »

Uduvil Girls College’s Bicentenary

by Dr. Thayalan Ambalavanar, Jaffna, February 7, 2024 Report Tuesday morning (6th February) saw the inaugural function of the Bicentennial celebrations of Uduvil Girls’ College in their college hall. The program was titled ‘Anthizo’ which in Greek means blossom. It was 200 years ago that a young American missionary, Harriet Winslow, started this school which… Read more »

President in the North, Governor in the East

by A. Nillanthan, January 13, 2024 [Translated from the original Tamil by Google Translate with improvements by the Sangam editor.] At the same time as the President visited the North to celebrate the New Year, his Governor in the East staged a huge cultural festival. The President met various people in the North: entrepreneurs, university… Read more »