Beate Arnestad

My Daughter the Terrorist

Director:	Beate Arnestad
Country of production:	Norway
Year of production:	2007
Duration:	60 min
D.O.P :	Frank Alvegg
Editor:	Morten Daae
Producer:	Morten Daae
Production company:	Snitt Film Production as / www.snitt.no/mdtt/index.htm

Film plot

Dharsika and Puhalchudar belong to the last batch of the Black Tigers, and are now equipped for the last mission: strapping an American-made Claymore mine to their bodies, able to blow themselves and everything within 100 feet to pieces. We first meet them at an optimistic time: The peace talks are making progress, and the Black Tigers are officially decommissioned. The girls are serving as ordinary soldiers.

The girls have a close friendship. For seven years they have been eating, sleeping, training and fighting side by side. They can survive for weeks in the jungle without supplies. They don’t know exactly how many enemies they’ve killed in ordinary battle.

Their only source of information is what the guerilla allows them to know, and sincerely believe that their great leader would never order them to bomb civilians. The grisly images of the bombing of Columbos very own World Trade Center is a somber counterpoint to this.

Dharsika’s family is typical: the father died in the war. We meet her mother, who has been struggling to bring up her family in a war-torn society. She tells us that Dharsika stayed with the family just long enough to bury her father, then disappeared into the guerilla’s hands.  She is proud of her daughter’s fight for their homeland.

This film ends with us and the mother hoping to meet Dharsika and Puhalchudar on Hero’s Day, the yearly pompous and grand celebration of every single tiger martyr. But we – and her mother – are unsuccessful. In the pessimistic mood of faltering peace talks the guerillas have decided to put them into active service again.

Alongside the wailing and grieving mothers clutching the graves of their loved and lost ones, she places her flowers on the grave of the unknown soldier and walks away.

Awards

2007 Message to Man, St. Petersburg: Best International Feature-length Documentary

 

Beate Arnestad worked for many years and in many different positions at Norwegian broadcaster NRK, mainly in the divisions of culture and entertainment. Her first documentary  was "Where the waves sing" (2002), tracing the life of a former painter and governor in the forgotten Danish-Norwegian colony Tranquebar  in India.

 While living in Sri Lanka from 2003 to 2006, she started exploring the concept of women in war, which turned into the film "My daughter the terrorist". She is currently starting work on a new documentary, this time based on recent African history.