The documentary, #GoHomeGota, the Story Behind Sri Lanka’s Hashtagged Protest Movement, focuses on Sri Lanka’s 2022 Aragalaya Protests
Sulochana Peiris, an independent documentary maker, researcher, writer, and fellow with the Media and Journalism Research Center, recently saw her latest documentary premiere in Europe. The documentary focuses on the 2022 Sri Lankan mass protests, providing an in-depth view of the protests and examining their development and organization. It includes interviews with key activists from diverse ethnic, linguistic, and professional backgrounds who played integral roles in the protest movement from its inception at the Galle Face local park occupation.
Notable figures, including Professor Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri, a political scientist from the University of Colombo, contribute to the documentary. Dewasiri contextualizes the “aragalaya” movement within the broader history of post-independence political and protest movements in Sri Lanka. Furthermore, Ambika Satkunanathan, former commissioner of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission, offers a critical assessment of the aragalaya protest movement. She highlights its shortcomings in fostering inclusivity across the nation’s ethnic divisions and its failure to address significant unresolved issues stemming from the country’s thirty-year war.
The documentary has been screened in the Netherlands and Austria so far, with plans for further dissemination.