The South Asian Studies Council presents two film screenings.
“Junglefowl” & “Karupy.”
Film Screenings and Conversation with Filmmaker Kalainithan Kalaichelvan and Composer Kalaisan Kalaichelvan will follow.
“Junglefowl”: In a small village in northern Sri Lanka, a young girl is forced to confront the consequences of a deadly civil war as a wounded freedom fighter is brought in to their home.
“Karupy”: At her 65th birthday, Karupy makes an unexpected announcement: she will be ending her own life that very night, sparking a whirlwind of emotions amongst her family.
Kalainithan Kalaichelvan is a Tamil-Canadian writer and director whose films have screened at festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and Palm Springs International ShortFest. His recent short film credits include Karupy (2025), Junglefowl (2023) and A Feller and the Tree (2021). Known for his work in music videos as well, he was nominated for a Juno Award for Music Video of the Year in 2022. Kalaichelvan has participated in the Netflix-BANFF Diversity of Voices program and the Rogers-BSO Script Development Fund Program and has received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, and Toronto Arts Council. He is an alumnus of the 2024 CFC Norman Jewison Directors Lab.
Kalaisan Kalaichelvan is a composer and musician based in New York. His compositional practice spans multiple disciplines, drawing from film, dance, theatre, installation and deals with themes of translation and transference. Named by Ludwig Van as one of “six emerging Canadian composers to keep an eye on” and Playback’s 10 to Watch, his music has been performed and premiered by celebrated ensembles such as Glenn Gould New Music Ensemble, the Dior Quartet, NMC Ensemble and Extended Music Collective. He has held residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, NewAm Composers Lab, UCross Foundation, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Kalaisan is a 2021 Fellow of the Sundance Composers lab and is one of the awarded grantees of the Sundance Institute’s Art of Practice Fellowship. He was awarded the SOCAN Emerging Composer Award in 2023 and 2024. He was also awarded the esteemed Kathleen McMorrow Award by the Ontario Arts Foundation in 2024 for the composition and presentation of contemporary classical music in Ontario. In 2023, Kalaisan wrote the music for the film In Flames, which was selected as the Pakistani entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. Kalaisan has scored feature films that have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival. He is currently working on various commissions and scoring a new Netflix series directed by Simon Barry. Kalaisan has been mentored by esteemed composers and music leaders such as Christopher Cerrone, Huang Ruo, Suzanne Farrin, Brian Current, Paul Wiancko and David Harrington of Kronos Quartet. Having worked across various disciplines and communities of thought, Kalaisan seeks to bring together incongruous institutions to build novel structures that reflect his artistic upbringing.