Jude Ratnam’s ‘Demons in Paradise’ became one of the winners of the Ram Bahadur best film award, the highest prize at the 11th edition of Film Southasia 2017 festival. The award was co-won by Soz- A Ballad of Memories (India), directed by Tushar Madhav and Sarvnik Kaur.

Jude Ratnam’s ‘Demons in Paradise’, a documentary from Sri Lanka that explores the effects of civil war in Sri Lanka. The screenplay of the film by Jude Ratnam and Isabelle Marina and produced by Julie Paratian and Astrig Chandeze-Avakian.

Jude Ratnam is reportedly the first local Tamil filmmaker to address the subject. ‘Demons of Paradise’ is Sri Lanka’s first and only documentary film to contest at prestigious Cannes Film Festival 2017 and Jude was nominated for two awards: Golden Camera and Golden Eye.

FSA’17 Jury was chaired by Kunda Dixit with Farjad Nabi and Rajarshi Dasgupta. The Festival opened on November 2 with the theme ‘Documentary Bears Witness’ with 63 non-fiction films, maximum that has ever been shown. Ghosts of War, directed by journalist Vanessa Dougnac and Fabrice Launay was also contested in the festival representing Sri Lanka.