A road movie set in Sri Lanka that follows a protagonist as she searches for the work of renowned local architect Geoffrey Bawa. It’s a journey to the heart of the island and the soul of what it is to be an architect and a filmmaker.

The film follows a protagonist scouring the island for the ‘lost’ garden of Lunuganga. Finding the treasure might be the goal, yet her search is the catalyst for encounters with a series of characters and rarely visited buildings that reveal the story of Bawa’s life and work. Shot across Sri Lanka, this experimental documentary weaves dreamlike narratives with real life characters intrinsic to the output of this renowned 20th-century architect. This alternative docudrama is tantamount to the eclectic and quietly moving work of Bawa’s buildings and gardens, and the collaborators that influenced his oeuvre.

This film was shot on location in Sri Lanka. The protagonist is a non-actor, though an architect herself in real life. The documentary interviewees are real-life peers and collaborators of Geoffrey Bawa. The protagonist speaks in her native French. The film explores the architectural documentary from a different perspective, based on some of the Director’s real-life encounters in trying to visit the Lunuganga garden and various Bawa projects in Sri Lanka over the years.

Expanding the architectural documentary genre, the film’s rhythm is a composition of research material, performance and interviews. Conceived like a building -- with a distinct spatial presence -- sequences are constructed to augment the experience of the rooms and landscapes the protagonist visits in her search for the mystical garden of Lunuganga. Breaking away from a dogmatic western understanding of space , the film celebrates the power of architecture on our senses, while exploring otherness and the nature of human memory.

PLEASE NOTE: Streaming for personal use only, for educational or cinematic screenings please contact [email protected].

Film information
Title: Bawa’s Garden
Country: UK, Sri Lanka
Running Time: 89 minutes
Year: 2022
Language: French (w English subtitles) & English

Credits
Writer/Director: Clara Kraft Isono
Producer: Corinne Mynatt
Executive Producer: Kate Wilson
Director of Photography: Daniel Chaytor
Editors: Clara Kraft Isono, Elisa Cepedal
Assistant Camera: Manuel Fernandes Seixas de Sa
Sound: Sunjna Mullick
Cast : Lea D’Albronn Allexandre
Original Score: Jasmin Kent Rodgman
Performed by Mandhira de Saram and Jasmin Kent Rodgman
Musical score supported by the RVW Trust, Fenton Arts Trust, PRS Foundation for Music
Special thanks to the Geoffrey Bawa Trust