Removal of the Eye

The lives of sleep deprived parents Kallia and Ram take a surreal turn when Kallia’s mother demands an exorcism is performed on their baby. Filmmakers Shaw and Kamalakanthan lend a gentle and intimate fragment of their life to the cinema by casting their actual family. 

Removal of the Eye marks Artemis Shaw and Prashanth Kamalakanthan’s return to IFFR following their Special Jury Award win for New Strains in the 2023 Tiger Competition. In this playful portrait of domestic scenes the two reprise their roles of Kallia and Ram, a couple now clawing their way through the sleep-deprived reality of parenthood while failing to jumpstart their academic and creative pursuits. When an accident occurs, Kallia’s mother declares that bad luck has befallen the family and insists on performing xematiasma, a Greek exorcism ritual to ward off the evil eye.

The charm of Kallia and Ram’s world treads between the handheld shots of chaotic motion and domestic details bathed in soft light, at times experimenting with slow-motion musical sequences, dramatic fish-eye lens effect and personal archive materials. The latter also highlights Shaw and Kamalakanthan’s filmmaking vision as a handcrafted, intimate endeavour, including their decision to cast their real-life parents and son in the film. While retaining its satirical humour tendencies, the film reminds us that at the core of the human experience is the desire to be understood, and even when most attempts boil down to failure, one continues to try.

– Dini Adanurani

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