Logline: Inspired by the love poem Caurapañcāśikā by Bilhana, Lotus-Eyed Girl unfurls the impacts of colonialism on human desire with a pulsating, ambient eeriness.

Synopsis: Loosely based on the erotic poem Caurapañcāśikā by Bilhana, which was written in prison upon discovery of the poet’s clandestine affair with Princess Yaminipurnatilaka. The verses were written while awaiting judgment, not knowing if he was to be executed or exiled—his fate is unknown. Lotus-Eyed Girl ruminates on the curious and fractured intersections of death, desire, and class. Fading family photographs (from an uncle’s funeral to my mother on her wedding day), pomegranate arils, pulsating floral mandalas, and horror atmospherics culminate into an ecstatic collision of death and longing—echoing devastations of the past. Through principles of psychogeography, the systems of power that shape identity and desire, in the way that colonialism has altered human perception, are examined in an undulating and capricious form.