2024 Volume 89 Issue 3 Pages 449-460
In 2023, Jude Ratnam made his first visit to Japan from Sri Lanka to screen his film Demons in Paradise. This essay describes the transformation I underwent as I accompanied Ratnam across Japan for the film's four screenings. The journey opened my "eyes" and gave me a new way of seeing the world as I, through "belly" and not by way of "head，" retraced the rebirth that Ratnam experienced through his filmmaking. Just as the film's content and form were inseparable for Ratnam, my new perspective has inseparably influenced my way of writing. By presenting my experience in this new way and appealing to the reader's gut ("belly") and not to the reader's mind ("head"), this essay aims to effect transformation in the reader.
