The Laugh of Lakshmi, a new hybrid dance drama, will begin filming in India in early 2023. It will be a joint venture between India and Australia, led by S Shakthidharan, an Australian of Sri Lankan and Tamil ancestry. The project was announced at the Cannes Film Festival on May 19th.

The Laugh of Lakshmi will be the first collaboration between Frames Per Second Films and Felix Media in Australia, according to Rakasree Basu, CEO of Frames Per Second Films in Mumbai. Filming will take place in Tamil Nadu and Australia.

“I welcome the Government of India’s recently announced incentive for foreign film and television production,” he continued. This will undoubtedly encourage and enrich all foreign productions planning to shoot in India with Indian cast and crew who are knowledgeable and skilled. This initiative will encourage international filmmakers to explore intercultural workspace, promote shared learning of filmmaking techniques, and promote India as a desirable filming location for international productions. As the Country of Honour in Cannes, India is off to a good start.” This is the first time a country has been honoured by the Marche du Film or Cannes Film Market.

With this film, Shakthidharan, who is also the writer, will make the transition from theatre to cinema. Counting and Cracking, a play set over four generations in Sri Lanka and Australia, was a huge success in Australia, winning seven Helpmann Awards. Counting and Cracking will be released in the United Kingdom soon.

The Laugh of Lakshmi, according to Shakthidharan, is a story about a mother and son separated by war in Sri Lanka. The mother, a well-known classical Indian dancer, entrusts her young son, who is also a gifted dancer, to her brother in Sydney. The mother and son “discover” each other after a twenty-five-year separation and living in vastly different communities. She had been involved with the grassroots Tamil women farmers’ cooperative movement while he had led a corporate life (with a forbidden romance thrown in).

Prasanna Vithanage, a member of the film’s production team and best known for his trilogy on Sri Lanka’s 35-year war—Death on a Full Moon Day, August Sun, and With You, Without You—told me over the phone from Colombo that the world should know about the suffering and resilience of his country’s people. The Laugh of Lakshmi would use moving imagery to tell stories about debilitating issues such as forced migration, homelessness, and tragic deaths.