Prismatic Ground 2025: Opening Night

We got another opportunity to cover the Prismatic Ground Film Festival, a festival dedicated to the films that pushes boundaries, addresses political issues, discusses current topics in the country and provides experimental art for your viewing pleasure. This year's theme is Year Five and the topics is wide ranged. For Opening Night at Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan, the festival starts with a ode to the Palestinian struggle from 1968 titled Palestine Will Win. A film that focus on the beginning of occupation of the territory by Britain and France to the regime at that time occupying the land. The composition of still photographs and Vietnam footage gives the viewer a understanding on why Palestinians fight to not only to protect their land but to teach newer generations that the war may continue on their older ages. Directed by the French director Jean-Pierre Olivier who shot the film in a student dorm he took different forms of mixed media to focus on the resistance. For 29 minutes the film is a great ode to what was happening at the time. The film even relates to the current situation happening in Palestine now which in itself is impressive. This was a great film to start the festival.

After a brief intermission the next film was the opening night film titled Your Touch makes others Invisible. A film about Sri Lanka's reputation of having the most enforced disappearances in the world. Director Rajee Samarasinghe debut feature discusses the disappearances stemming from the Sri Lankan civil war as oppose to what the government is telling the world. The film fuses fiction and investigated documentary together to with locals to give us a brilliant fictional narrative about a region still recovering from the war. By using various sources Samarasinghe made a great collage of fact and fiction that fits well and doesn't overkill. The scenes of the interview of the government trying to deflect fault to propaganda is a great segway into some of the interviews that explains why the government can not be trusted. The scenes that displays the rituals that the locals uses to chase spirits which in turn helps them deal with the everyday battle with the government to preserve their identity. You can tell that the film is a essay on how the oppressed should keep their identity and still fight other entities that disrupt their way of life. The lingering effects is on heavy display and the sight of the country going through those effects is frightening yet. Overall a great opening night film to showcase the initial wave that starts the theme of year five of the festival. Rajee Samarasinghe is a great documentarian and this debut feature has definitely set the bar high.