On the eve of Saraswati Pooja, a Hindu festival celebrating the Goddess of Education, Krishna’s world is brought to a standstill. Forced to return to the family he has previously held at arm’s length, Krishna must now take a closer look at himself and face up to the questions he thought he already comfortably held the answers to. What do you discover when you hold up snapshots from the life you’ve unthinkingly claimed as your own for eighteen years?

‘Still Life’ poignantly takes a look at one of lesser-known communities who are on the brink of imploding as a result of ever-growing gang culture.

With the number of young Sri Lankan Tamils dying from gang violence on the increase, there has never been a more appropriate time to take an introspective look into the very community the directors Nelson and Kuvera Sivalingam have been brought up in. Personally affected by the loss of a family member in similar circumstances, their film is not a moral message but a sensitive observation of individual choices and their fatal consequences.

Taking an untried and untested path, ‘Still Life’ is also possibly one of the first short films in the UK to be shot on a still camera – the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Following research and interviews with victims and young people who are on the brink of gang crime, Kuvera & Nelson wrote a script that they believed was a honest portrayal of both sides of the story. The script was chosen through a vigorous selection process and finally funded by the 2008 Eastern Edge Film Fund.