We use our films to develop impact strategies that drive change both locally and globally, keeping critical issues in the international spotlight. In Myanmar, our films were screened nationwide in workshops and at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington D.C., contributing to efforts to de-escalate religious intolerance. Our completed and forthcoming films on the environment in Trinidad & Tobago aim to raise global awareness of climate change and the urgent challenges facing small island nations.
Possible Landscapes
A test screening of 'Possible Landscapes', a documentary feature film directed by Kannan Arunasalam and produced and conceptualised by Tao DuFour and Natalie Melas. took place at Cornell Cinema in October 2024.
'’Possible Landscapes’ is an enquiry into intergenerational lived experiences of landscape and environmental change in the Caribbean, Possible Landscapes moves through sugarcane fields with their saccharine smells of burning cane, follows the contours of valleys that ascend into the mists of mountain ranges coloured by language, moves across the clear waters of seas that reveal dying coral reefs, sits in the quiet of unfinished domestic spaces that stretch into oil fields, carries us across the rough and tragic waters of the Atlantic. Filmed in Trinidad and Tobago across two seasons, we are led by the memories, narratives and labour of a few persons in their daily lives to consider the interlacing of post-independence aspirations and disappointments, legacies of colonialism and postcolonial nationalism, and changing forms of extractivism with today’s environmental crises. A collaboration between a documentary filmmaker, Kannan Arunasalam and two scholars, Tao DuFour (Architecture) an architect and spatial theorist and Natalie Melas (Comparative Literature) a postcolonial comparatist and scholar of Caribbean thought, Possible Landscapes is the outcome of the team research project, “Possible Landscapes: Documenting Environmental Experience in Trinidad and Tobago,” funded through a grant from Cornell University’s Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge and the Mellon Just Futures Initiative.
'’Possible Landscapes’ is an enquiry into intergenerational lived experiences of landscape and environmental change in the Caribbean, Possible Landscapes moves through sugarcane fields with their saccharine smells of burning cane, follows the contours of valleys that ascend into the mists of mountain ranges coloured by language, moves across the clear waters of seas that reveal dying coral reefs, sits in the quiet of unfinished domestic spaces that stretch into oil fields, carries us across the rough and tragic waters of the Atlantic. Filmed in Trinidad and Tobago across two seasons, we are led by the memories, narratives and labour of a few persons in their daily lives to consider the interlacing of post-independence aspirations and disappointments, legacies of colonialism and postcolonial nationalism, and changing forms of extractivism with today’s environmental crises. A collaboration between a documentary filmmaker, Kannan Arunasalam and two scholars, Tao DuFour (Architecture) an architect and spatial theorist and Natalie Melas (Comparative Literature) a postcolonial comparatist and scholar of Caribbean thought, Possible Landscapes is the outcome of the team research project, “Possible Landscapes: Documenting Environmental Experience in Trinidad and Tobago,” funded through a grant from Cornell University’s Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge and the Mellon Just Futures Initiative.
Sri Lanka’s Rebel Wife
We partnered with the Sri Lanka Campaign to host the premiere of ‘Sri Lanka’s Rebel Wife’ ahead of its global broadcast on Al Jazeera Witness. The event brought together human rights activists, journalists, academics, and members of both Tamil and Sinhala diaspora organisations—stakeholders deeply invested in building a more democratic and inclusive Sri Lanka.
Following the screening, a panel discussion—moderated by The Economist editor-at-large Simon Long—explored the film’s core themes, particularly the issue of enforced disappearances. The panel featured director Kannan Arunasalam, human rights lawyer Dharsha Jegatheeswaran, Alan Keenan of the International Crisis Group, and BBC journalist Nalini Sivathasan.
The film was warmly received, and the event helped sustain critical attention on the issue of enforced disappearances—especially relevant during a time of widespread protest in Sri Lanka. In turn, the protest movement created new space to revisit and reflect on these long-silenced conversations around war crimes and accountability.
WE LOVE WE SELF UP HERE
Our completed and forthcoming films on the environment in Trinidad & Tobago spotlight the lived experience of ordinary people in the face of the Anthropocene, while tracing the legacies of the sugar and oil industries. These works aim to expand global attention on the entangled environmental, historical, and social forces shaping life on small island nations.
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In 2021, Kannan Arunasalam and collaborators Tao DuFour and Natalie Melas took part in a discussion and Q&A on their documentary ‘We Love We Self Up Here’, joined by Viranjini Munasinghe (Associate Professor of Anthropology, Cornell University), David Scott (Ruth and William Lubic Professor and Chair of Anthropology, Columbia University), and Jeremy Foster (Associate Professor of Architecture, Cornell University). The film has since been screened and discussed at institutions including Harvard University and the University of Cambridge.
THE TENT
Following its exhibition at The Tetley contemporary art gallery in Leeds (February–June 2019) and the South Gallery at the University of Brighton (March–May 2019), our two-channel installation film The Tent was presented in both Colombo and Jaffna. In collaboration with Amnesty International and with support from the Open Society Foundations, the film was shown alongside a historical photographic archive by veteran conflict photographer Stephen Champion. Screenings included a special event for Tamil mothers of the disappeared.
The project aimed to draw attention to the ongoing protests by Tamil mothers in the north, while also encouraging southern audiences to engage with the broader history of enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka. In Jaffna, the screenings sought to gesture toward historical continuities with the 1987–89 “Era of Terror,” a period marked by widespread state violence and insurrection.
The project aimed to draw attention to the ongoing protests by Tamil mothers in the north, while also encouraging southern audiences to engage with the broader history of enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka. In Jaffna, the screenings sought to gesture toward historical continuities with the 1987–89 “Era of Terror,” a period marked by widespread state violence and insurrection.
