Little Jaffna
Lawrence Valin
© Guy Ferrandis
The ""Little Jaffna"" neighbourhood in Paris is the heart of a vibrant Tamil community, where Michael, a young police officer, is tasked with going undercover in a criminal gang known for extortion and money laundering to fund separatist rebels in Sri Lanka. But as he delves deeper into the organisation, his loyalty will be put to the test in a relentless pursuit of one of Paris’s most secretive and powerful gangs.
Cast : Lawrence Valin, Vela Ramamoorthy, Radha Radikaa Sarathkumar, Puviraj Raveendran, Marilou Aussilloux
Scenario: Lawrence Valin, Marlène Poste, Malysone Bovorasmy, Gaëlle Macé, Arthur Beaupère, Yacine Badday
Cinematography: Maxence Lemonnier
Sound: Thomas Van Pottelbergue
Editing: Anaïs Manuelli
Music: Maxence Dussère
Scenario: Lawrence Valin, Marlène Poste, Malysone Bovorasmy, Gaëlle Macé, Arthur Beaupère, Yacine Badday
Cinematography: Maxence Lemonnier
Sound: Thomas Van Pottelbergue
Editing: Anaïs Manuelli
Music: Maxence Dussère
Production : Ex Nihilo, Mean Streets
Distribution : Zinc.
Distribution : Zinc.
As a young actor, Valin was always typecast on account of his heritage and skin colour: a fakir, a seller of roses and chestnuts, or the ‘Indian best friend’. French cinema loves its stereotypes. Having grown up on Indian, Hong Kong and American cinema, Valin has therefore stepped behind the camera to tell a different story, his own, through a genre he explored in his short films: the crime thriller. Right from its title, Little Jaffna pays homage to James Gray’s Little Odessa. Or to Martin Scorsese’s Little Italy in Mean Streets. In Paris, too, the streets are mean. Little Jaffna, a neighbourhood situated between the 10th and 18th arrondissements, which has been home to the Tamil community since the 1970s, appears at first glance to be a cheerful and colourful place. The viewer is introduced to it during the 2008 Ganesh festival. Beneath the masks and colourful tunics, however, the reality is far less cheerful. Aya, leader of the Eelam Boys gang, extorts money from shopkeepers to fund the Tamil Tigers’ struggle in Sri Lanka. Above all, his trafficking in illegal immigrants and drugs makes him a formidable and feared financial mastermind. Skilled with a cricket bat, Aya can torture a man by hitting him in the face and body with the ball. Michael (Valin himself), a police officer tasked with going undercover within the criminal group, gains access through Puvi, Aya’s right-hand man, who is madly in love with the daughter of a rival gang. Like all good undercover films (The Departed, Donnie Brasco, Point Break), Little Jaffna depicts Michael’s conflict of loyalty, himself the son of a Tamil Tiger killed in action, a mole torn between two cultures. For his debut feature film, Valin is certainly not one to shy away from a challenge. His film features characters unlike any seen before in French crime cinema, led by the charismatic Puviraj Ravendran (Puvi) and Vela Ramamoorthy (Aya). His film has genuine character, offering a raw, yet stylised immersion into a world caught up in the violence of a war taking place 10,000 km from Paris."" (Étienne Sorin; lefigaro.fr)�