• Vimukthi Jayasundara returns with world premiere at Busan

The 30th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), one of Asia’s most celebrated showcases for global cinema, unveiled its inaugural Competition section this year – and among just 14 carefully chosen titles stood ‘Spying Stars’, the latest film by Sri Lankan director Vimukthi Jayasundara.

Running 99 minutes and produced through an ambitious Indo-French-Sri Lankan collaboration, Spying Stars marks Jayasundara’s long-awaited return to feature filmmaking after nearly a decade. For many in the audience, the screening was not only a premiere but a homecoming – a reintroduction to a filmmaker whose poetic, enigmatic cinema has already carved a place in world film history.

A story between science and spirit

At its core, Spying Stars is a science-fantasy drama that straddles both the intimacy of human grief and the vastness of speculative imagination. The narrative follows Anandi, a bioengineer returning to Earth after years in space, who finds herself quarantined in a secluded mountain resort amid the spread of the deadly ‘Illvibe’ virus. What begins as isolation quickly mutates into a descent into fear: Surveillance cameras, UFOs approaching Earth, unexplained disappearances, and the arrival of her father’s remains push Anandi to the edge.

For Jayasundara, the science-fiction premise was never about spectacle for its own sake. “The concept of Illvibe, a future disease rooted in technology, gave us a framework to reflect on loss, mourning and a shared human condition,” he explained. “I didn’t want to make a film about a virus. I wanted to ask: what happens to our sense of being when we are watched, when we are disconnected, when grief collides with technology?”

A personal return

The project carries with it an unmistakably personal resonance. Jayasundara, who won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes in 2005 for The Forsaken Land, has spent much of the last decade away from cinema, pursuing what he describes as a spiritual journey. The time coincided with the loss of his father, an experience that deeply informed the atmosphere of Spying Stars.

“This film is not only about Anandi,” Jayasundara reflected. “It is about me too – my own silence, my mourning, my attempt to understand death without explanation. When you lose a parent, you don’t look at the world the same way. The story became a meditation on absence, on the ghosts that technology cannot erase.”

That personal turn distinguishes ‘Spying Stars’ from his earlier films, which often grappled with the lingering shadows of Sri Lanka’s internal conflict. While echoes of political allegory remain, the new work pivots toward what the director calls “a liberation film that is spiritual in nature”.

“At a time of pervasive voyeurism and technological control, how do we retain our humanity?” he asked. “That is the question I wanted to leave with the audience.”

A cinema of resistance

Shot across Sri Lanka with international partners, the film combines striking imagery with unsettling sonic textures, alternating between long stretches of quiet reflection and sudden bursts of violence. From the turtle’s slow walk, a recurring image, to ritualistic invocations of the dead, ‘Spying Stars’ refuses to follow sci-fi conventions.

For Jayasundara, this refusal is deliberate. “I am not interested in making cinema that explains everything,” he said. “I want to resist the idea that science fiction must be full of spectacle or answers. Mystery is important. It allows us to feel rather than to consume.”

That philosophy is visible in the film’s style: restrained dialogue, poetic landscapes, but also disorienting ruptures, a severed body part here, a piercing sound there. “The interruptions are essential,” he noted. “They remind us that beauty is fragile, that violence lurks in silence, that technology is not neutral. The film is not meant to comfort. It is meant to disturb gently, like a dream you can’t quite forget.”

Building bridges

Spying Stars is also notable as a cross-border production, backed by Eleenora Images (India), House on Fire (France), and Film Council Productions (Sri Lanka), with support from major international film funds including the Hubert Bals Fund and CNC France.

“I see this collaboration as more than finance,” Jayasundara emphasised. “It is about building bridges. Cinema from South Asia rarely enters the global conversation in this way. By joining hands with India and France, we were able to protect the film’s vision while ensuring it reaches audiences worldwide.”

That ambition is matched by his choice of cast, which includes India’s Indira Tiwari alongside Sri Lankan stalwarts Kaushalya Fernando and Samanalee Fonseka. “I wanted actors who could inhabit silence,” he said. “Science fiction often depends on dialogue to explain. I wanted faces that could carry the weight of grief without words.”

The Busan moment

The selection of ‘Spying Stars’ for BIFF’s first-ever Competition section feels both symbolic and historic. For Jayasundara, the Busan premiere is not simply a festival slot but an affirmation of Sri Lankan cinema’s potential.

“Busan has always been close to me,” he said. “It is a festival that understands Asian cinema without exoticising it. To be in the inaugural Competition is meaningful because it says, our stories are not sidebars, they are part of the main conversation.”

Asked about his hopes for how audiences will respond, he shared. “I don’t expect people to leave the cinema with answers. I expect them to leave with questions – about surveillance, about mourning, about how technology both connects and destroys. If they feel unsettled, then I have succeeded.”

A cinematic homecoming

The return of Vimukthi Jayasundara to world cinema is itself a story of resilience. Having once brought Sri Lanka its first Caméra d’Or, his decade-long silence left many wondering if he had turned away from filmmaking altogether. ‘Spying Stars’ is proof not only that he has returned, but that his vision has expanded.

“I see this film as both a spectacle and a meditation,” he reflected. “It is made for the big screen, but also for the quiet corners of the heart. I have no desire to make films that are easily consumed and forgotten. I want them to haunt.”

As ‘Spying Stars’ begins its festival journey, competing for top honours at Busan and destined for further international screenings, it also marks a new chapter for Sri Lankan cinema. By blending speculative imagination with spiritual inquiry, Jayasundara has once again carved a path that is distinctly his own.

And for him, that is enough. “I am not chasing trends or markets,” he said. “I am chasing the mystery of being alive. Cinema, for me, is still the best way to do that.”