CRAZY FISH SING. 𝐴 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑅𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 Still Here

By Simone Brioni, Associate Professor at Stony Brook University

Editor’s Note: Crazy Fish Sing is a visual art book inspired by Suranga Katugampala’s forthcoming film Still Here. Situated in an experimental territory on the border between noir and documentary, the film is shot in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Milan, Italy. Transporting the reader through its real, imagined, and affective geographies, Crazy Fish Sing offers a unique behind-the-scenes perspective on the making of Still Here and the questions this film raises about cultural hybridity, urbanization, and realism.

Still Here is a profound and disquieting film directed by Suranga Katugampala. It is an experience that makes the audience feel like a fish out of water. It is a dark fable that inhabits a disconcerting zone between neonoir, documentary, and video art. Shot between Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Milan, Italy, Still Here features characters uncannily interpreted by non-professional actors who seem to be living in a difficult social context. The urban environments depicted in the film are imbued with stories of resistance to forms of displacement caused by the high costs of living. The construction of new buildings together with changes in the cultural and socioeconomic makeup of these cities drives these characters to become hopelessly alienated, spatially estranged, struggling to build meaningful relationships. Nonetheless, these people are vibrantly “alive.” They are “fish” who can sing – but are we able to listen?

I see Still Here as a stunning visual representation of what Homi K. Bhabha defines as “unhomeliness.” This term describes not just a physical displacement from one’s homeland, but also a psychological and cultural dislocation due to various factors, including colonialism and migration. Bhabha argues that this disrupted or fractured sense of home or belonging can be at the same time unsettling and productive. Indeed, “unhomeliness” can lead to new forms of cultural expression, hybrid identities, and creative responses to the challenges of living in a globalized world. Still Here can be seen as an “unhomely” film, because it encourages the audience to question fixed notions of identity. Its locations, starting from places existing in the Corvetto district in Milan, or the Kompagngna Veediya neighborhood and Port City in Colombo, create a third dimension, a disturbing territory on the evanescent border between memory and imagination.

Still Here transcends being merely a film; it embodies a six-year journey of artistic exploration and research. The final cut of the film does not encompass all the potential stories that could have arisen from the reflections that shaped this artistic product. The title, Still Here, is therefore both inadequate and necessary. It exemplifies a cinematic practice that goes beyond its final form. I call this multiplicity of stories Still Here, using a strikethrough term, a sous rature. This constellation of symbols, experiences, reflections, and images not only resides within the film, but also exists in this concept book. It is still here.

The book’s title, Crazy Fish Sing, is derived from an earlier working title for Katugampala’s most recent film, which in its turn replaced the title Ghost Fish Sing Crazy. This title is ambiguous, as fish can be interpreted as both singular or plural. In the former case, the verb would not be conjugated according to grammatical norms, reflecting the “imperfect” language common among multilingual subjects. In other words, the title identifies a tension between individual and shared experiences which is at the center of Still Here. Moreover, and most importantly, this title indicates a hybrid entity, a marine creature with terrestrial abilities.

Crazy Fish Sing further investigates the “unhomely” feeling expressed in Still Here, and it shows that this film is an important but perhaps not definitive or ultimate outcome of broader artistic research. Still Here is the result of all the erasures, reconsiderations, alterations, and inspirations which are part of the creative practice – a process that is visually reflected in Crazy Fish Sing. This book gathers reflections that travel with this film, sometimes running ahead, sometimes following behind. But eventually it sets forth on a new path, and lives a life of its own, detached from Still Here. Crazy Fish Sing can therefore be seen as a convergence between the points of both departure and arrival from Still Here. In fact, it addresses some of the questions that inspired the making of the film, as well as questions the film continues to generate. Is there a more fitting way to present an artistic enterprise in which the dimensions of arrival and departure are not clearly defined but conflated?

While many filmmaker artbooks, such as Derek Jarman’s Sketchbook (2013) or The Sophia Coppola Archives: 1999-2023 (2023), derive solely from a director’s vision and original material, Crazy Fish Sing stands apart through its polyvocal, collaborative and dialogic approach. Katugampala and I identified key themes within the book and contacted a diverse group of contributors to explore and expound upon them. Along with several contributors, I immersed myself in the film by watching at least three distinct versions. As a result, our observations on Still Here naturally built a dynamic and evolving discourse intertwined with the various iterations of the cinematic narrative. Considering the dynamic nature of the book, this introduction has undergone various revisions, some of which have been incorporated into the text and indicated by a strikethrough.

Upon receiving the various contributions, I undertook the task of organizing the texts into five cohesive parts. In doing so, I aimed not only to maintain thematic coherence but also to identify distinctive keywords, themes, and visual motifs that permeate the entirety of the book. The conceptualization of Crazy Fish Sing transcends a mere reflection of the director’s imagination, by serving as a dedicated space for dialogue, mediation, and the coming together of people with diverse expertise. The collaborative nature of the project encourages a multiplicity of voices, enriching the exploration and understanding of the film beyond the director’s perspective.

Crazy Fish Sing is divided into five main parts and it includes three constitutive components: firsthand accounts from film industry professionals who worked on Still Here, texts that explore the broader cultural and cinematic questions presented in the film, and visual storytelling and thinking. Each part is introduced by a text written by Katugampala, which expands upon notes taken during the years in which the film was in development and production.

The theme of artistic production runs through several texts in this volume, and not just in the first section, “Inceptions, Erasures, Detours,” which includes the perspective of the producers of Still Here: Paolo Benzi (Okta Film), Graziano Chiscuzzu (5e6 Film), and Katugampala. Common beliefs about film production are often misleading. Producers are seen as an obstacle to the creativity and free expression of artists, who are in turn seen as mysterious hermits detached from ordinary reality. As no film can be made without money, producers are frequently depicted as economically privileged subjects who exert their influence and authority on directors. Their relationship is presented in conflictual rather than dialogic terms. This stereotype does not mirror the experience of Still Here. No movie would ever be possible without the constant collective exchange between different subjects who contribute to shape a desired project through their competence and skills. As a consequence, the politics of representation of Still Here cannot be divorced from its philosophy of production.

The article “Film Production Beyond the Mainstream” provides an insider’s perspective on the co-production of Still Here. This text deserves a particular mention because of the way in which it was produced. Katugampala and I wrote it based on conversations with the producers, Chiscuzzu and Benzi. Having benefited from the “invisible” work of producers for the films we have authored in the past, we decided to become “producers” of their texts. Benzi was the first to acquire the rights to Still Here and established a key partnership with Rai Cinema and the Fondazione Pianoterra. He also initiated a collaboration with 5e6 Film, which later became the lead producer of the film. Still Here can be viewed as the result of a synergy between two generations of producers, with Benzi mentoring his younger colleagues at 5e6 Film: Chiscuzzu and Chiara Budano. The producers’ intervention is both a rendering of their journey to make this film and an invitation to rethink production in a more radical and responsible way beyond its mere commercial value.

Reflections on the film’s production have sparked thoughts about the making of this book, the process from which it emerged, its intended audiences, and the narrative community it has gathered across languages and national borders.

The creative process is not only presented in the texts, but also through images. For instance, the compositions presented in the first part reveal the intricate and multi-layered editing of Still Here. These visual assemblages are inspired by Richard McGuire’s Here (2014), a graphic novel which takes place in a single room but spans across thousands of years, exploring different moments and events that have occurred in that space.

The presentation of frames captured from the same second of Still Here at different editing stages interlace to create a new and unique narrative. Frames are also interspersed with other stylistic elements that preceded the film and inspired its making, thus complicating the space-time interplay. This deliberate blend of styles enhances the overall reading/viewing pleasure, providing a rich and nuanced journey. The visual component of this book was designed by Yogurt Creative Agency, specifically Francesco Rombaldi as art director and Melissa Pallini as graphic designer. Rombaldi  meticulously edited 1,600 photographs, skillfully identifying commonalities in language and a cohesive unity of intent throughout the collection. The visual content was diverse, including images generated by artificial intelligence, movie stills, digital and analog behind-the-scenes photographs, and archival material such as maps. It also featured pictures of notebooks, as well as scanned images of books. Pallini then creatively assembled the material by taking Katugampala’s 35-page flatpan as a reference and an inspiration.

The visual material also included illustrations by Prasad Hettiarachchi, a stage designer for Still Here and a collaborator on Katugampala’s video installation The Season of Great Hunts (2021). Hettiarachchi’s interest in exploring the relationship between modernization and tradition adds a compelling layer to the overall visual narrative. The combination of visual and textual elements gives rise to imagined landscapes within existing ones. They invite readers to make connections within and beyond the different experiences which are part of the imaginary presented in Still Here.

The texts that explore the broader cultural and cinematic questions presented in the film are included in the following parts: “Reality vs. Fiction,” “Geographies,” “Archives,” “Language.” However, the recurrence of common themes in multiple essays shows that describing Crazy Fish Sing as merely a combination of its three constitutive aspects or the sum of its five parts would be inaccurate. The various references to Gilles Deleuze’s work hint at the rhizomatic nature of this book. In fact, there are alternative, non-linear, and non-sequential ways of reading Crazy Fish Sing, by following interconnected ideas and themes across its different sections.

Several instances invite readers to witness an intricate interweaving of cultures and the dissemination of ideas and their tangible impacts across various national borders and languages. Primarily conceived in English with translations from Italian by Giovanna Bellesia Contuzzi and Victoria Offredi Poletto, Crazy Fish Sing also incorporates other languages, including Italian and Sinhala. Occasionally, texts in these languages remain untranslated, replicating the experience of not entirely understanding a language, a common condition for many people who do not live where they are born.

The interplay between translanguaging and silence is not solely a theme of Still Here discussed in the last two texts of the book, respectively written by Derek Duncan and Loredana Polezzi; it also defines the nature of Crazy Fish Sing. Given the translingual dimension of the book, a decision was made with the translators to incorporate various English variants (with “accents” linked to British or U.S. English), reflecting the fact that most authors of the contributions navigate between multiple languages and reside in different parts of the world.

The last composition in Crazy Fish Sing challenges linguistic norms by blending sentences by Janith – the character referred to as the “uncle” in Still Here – during the film’s production or conveyed to Katugampala via text messages, with excerpts from John Callaway’s A Vocabulary in Cingalese and English: With a Series of Familiar Phrases (1820). Janith’s sentences inject an anarchic and poetic dimension into a series of abstract sentences that serve specific functions. These unique constructions not only lack a defined meaning but also prompt readers to contemplate the established norms questioned by a translingual film like Still Here. This exploration encourages readers to reconsider the boundaries between grammatical correctness and the language usually spoken, thus adding a layer of complexity to the linguistic discourse presented in the composition. More broadly, they invite readers to think about the set of established norms that are under question in a film like Still Here.

Language serves not only as a means of expression but also as a way to conceptualize social and personal realities. Indeed, language not only reflects but also shapes our cognitive processes and worldviews. According to Duncan, several contemporary films have used “language difference to explore conditions and limits of hospitality or questions of intergenerational conflict played out between parents and children who do not share the same accents.” This thematic element is explored in several pages of Crazy Fish Sing. For instance, one of the visual compositions presents a montage of two pictures taken respectively in Corvetto and the Gas 5 neighborhood in Colombo with a text in Sinhala that translates to “our neighborhood.” This text prompts questions about the identity of the “we,” given that only Sinhala speakers can comprehend the writing while the composition is set in an Italian urban landscape. This composition of Crazy Fish Sing interrogates readers regarding the imagined community part of which they perceive themselves. This theme is also presented in Still Here, by featuring a variegated community which challenges conventional notions of blood relationships and established ideals associated with the nuclear family.

Hybridity of languages, styles, media and genres is another key theme of this book. As Ivelise Perniola argues, Still Here exists neither as a documentary nor as a fiction, but as a performance for the camera. Some scenes in Katugampala’s film show the interaction between the filmmakers and those being filmed, making the audience aware of that human exchange. By doing so, the film not only challenges genre conventions but also encourages viewers to engage with the content in a more participatory manner and to question traditional notions of authenticity. Still Here displays a postdocumentary aesthetic (Corner 2002) as its plot unfolds beyond linear narratives, incorporating experimental approaches to storytelling. Likewise, Crazy Fish Sing reveals different layers of meaning, history, or information within and beyond the film (with each layer built upon or influenced by what came before), by presenting a variety of cultural artifacts and texts which take a multitude of forms (diary, interview, essay among others).

For instance, Matteo Binci’s text was developed similar to a form of radio zapping and it includes lyrics of songs and the transcript of (imaginary) podcast conversations. In his presentation of this multilingual stream of consciousness, Binci maintains that

Radio serves as the cosmic background radiation for those grappling with insomnia or absent-mindedly wandering around. Telescopes perceive the space between stars and galaxies as a vast expanse of darkness. Yet, this apparent void is filled with a subtle isotropic radiation—a sea of microwaves that permeate and interconnect the universe. This radiation represents the lingering echo of the Big Bang, a cosmic remnant of ourselves.

Similarly to a radio program, Binci’s text evokes experiences and memories associated with distant times and places. At the same time, this text can be seen as a sort of frequency interference or a radio jamming within the narrative of the book. The shape of this text is connected with an overarching question within the book, namely, how can media be manipulated to convey specific messages or distort reality.

Binci’s text is included in “Archives,” a section which specifically highlights the diverse influences on Katugampala’s artistic research with an emphasis on the contributions of directors such as Robert Bresson, Mani Kaul, and Nagisa Ōshima. Katugampala’s approach was also inspired by the experience of some Sri Lankan directors such as Dennis Perera, whose work is discussed in Anuradha Kodagoda’s piece. Notably, Still Here is the result of a diverse and vibrant cinephilic perspective and it includes excerpts from other films such as Joe D’Amato’s adult movie Lolita: Adolescenza Perversa (Perverse Adolescence, 1997). The film and the reasons for this insertion in Still Here are discussed in a specific note by Katugampala. Analyzing the creative and experimental use of archival resources in Still Here, Federico Pedroni shows how this practice is widespread in the work by contemporary Italian directors such as Alina Marazzi and Pietro Marcello. The cinematic references in Still Here contribute to create a complex temporal palimpsest of memories – or, to use Polezzi’s words, “superimpositions, juxtapositions and gaps” –, which resists any intention to categorize the film within one genre or national tradition.

The theme of (cinematic) memory is also explored in the panels inspired by Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas (1924-1929). Warburg called this work a “ghost story for adults” (Michaud 2004: 242), a definition that seems to show a similarity between his work on art history and cinema, the “ghostliest of mediums” (Lim 2023). According to the presentation of the Mnemosyne. Meanderings Through Aby Warburg’s Atlas webpage available through Cornell’s library website, Warburg made an “attempt to map the ‘afterlife of antiquity,’ or how images of great symbolic, intellectual, and emotional power emerge in Western antiquity and then reappear and are reanimated in the art and cosmology of later times and places.” Similarly, Katugampala and I created panels – which were later visually assembled by Pallini – around a theme of Still Here by referring to either films which inspired Katugampala or films which were mentioned in the texts included in this book. Each title of the composition refers to a classical motif, reminiscent of Warburg’s “pathos-formel” (pathos formula), themes transmitted and transformed throughout visual history. The caption and relevant information about each panel can be found at the end of the book.

The theme of memory is also evoked by the objects presented in Crazy Fish Sing. If Daniel Miller is right to argue that “things make people just as much as people make things” (2009: 135), objects in Still Here and Crazy Fish Sing are not just decorative elements, but they are narrative elements, weaving stories. As Katugampala argues in his text about Janith, the floral decoration on an axe hanging on the wall of his home adds an intriguing contrast to its overall design, presenting him as a character that embodies both violence and fragility. Upon conversing with artist Avni Sethi, another compelling element in the film was drawn to my attention—an assortment of cardboard boxes situated in the father’s home awaiting dispatch to Wennapuwa. Known locally in Sri Lanka as “Punchi Italia” or Little Italy, this area’s name stems from its architectural resemblance to “Italian architecture, financed with remittances originating from Italy” (Pathirage and Collier 2011: 316). According to Bernardo Brown, this name also derives from the fact that “migrant workers as well as non-migrant relatives in Sri Lanka also incorporated some Italian food products into their diet and adopted imported fashion trends; but most importantly, they were perceived to have changed their lifestyles and values for other, more European ones” (2014: 336). Brown further argues that despite significant investments by migrants from this region to reinforce emotional ties to Sri Lanka, the likelihood of return is slim (2014: 336). Consequently, the presence of these cardboard boxes in Still Here can be seen as having a symbolic importance, representing nostalgia and an unattainable return. Crazy Fish Sing shows how objects that bring up repressed or discarded memories can be unsettling. Various compositions within this book emphasize how these objects have a strong power to resurrect haunting and unsettling memories, affecting the present.

For instance, some photographs presented in Crazy Fish Sing and the reference to Basil Wright’s colonial documentary Song of Ceylon (1934) in Still Here evoke the colonial period. The legacy of colonialism and the resistance to its normative logic is an important theme in this book, as discussed in Fabrice Olivier Dubosc’s text. Moreover, this theme can be visualized in Hettiarachchi’s illustrations which are inspired by Sri Lankan art that emerged in the colonial period. While Hettiarachchi was engrossed in creating drawings for this book, he concurrently undertook the restoration of early 19th-century paintings at the Weheragalla Samudragiri Viharaya, a Buddhist temple in Mirissa, Matara District, Sri Lanka. Many of his drawings were inspired by this artistic endeavor. Most early studies of Buddhist art framed these paintings within the Kandyan period (1597–1815), describing them as being typically “Srilankan” art. While these paintings exhibit traditional motifs, recent scholarly research has brought to light a discernible European influence and showed that they are in fact the product of a colonial encounter. As Bindu Urugodawatte has argued:

By early eighteenth century the craftsmen who worked in temples were also involved in creating churches under European specifications and by early twentieth century, artists who were creating church paintings were invited to create murals in Buddhist temples. […] The frequency of occurrence of European cultural traits among local traditional paintings […] does not mean that Sri Lankan artists completely accepted the European diaspora or its rule, nor does it mean that there was no persecution of Buddhism, but rather that cultural acceptance of European traits had become a part of the culture to such lengths that it was no longer considered as European but as a part of Sri Lankan culture. […] Buddhist paintings of Sri Lanka from eighteenth to twentieth century indicate [...] a harmonious existence between the ruling European diaspora and local ethnicities despite the problems and turbulences which prevailed during this era of discord. (2020: 201-2)

The cultural hybridity evident in the paintings that influenced Hettiarachchi’s work are reinterpreted in this book to highlight the challenges of gentrification and urbanization, illustrating the interconnectedness of different parts of the world such as Milan and Colombo.

One of the book’s key questions, prominently highlighting the theme of cultural hybridity, revolves around the intertwined themes of space and belonging. These themes find expression in “Geographies.” In particular, Marta Bertani’s drawings and texts offer a series of reflections on how humans perceive and interact with their surroundings. Her interventions stand out in the volume because they provide both an external viewpoint as an architect and an internal viewpoint as a location scout and Katugampala’s interlocutor in making the film.

Bertani’s insights into the core of Corvetto, the Mazzini neighborhood, inspired me to further reflect about Milan and its association with other parts of the world. Milan’s neighborhoods are often contextualized by drawing comparisons with New York. For instance NoLo—a blend word akin to NoLita, the neighborhood north of Little Italy in New York—is used to identify the area to the north of Loreto. Besides this well-known association with a Western metropolis, Milan has a longstanding history of hosting a Chinese community since the late 1800s, making the transnational ties between the city and Asia well-established (Parati 2017: 87-143).

Bertani’s text on the Mazzini neighborhood can be considered alongside Pamudu Tennakoon’s reflections on the Kompagngna Veediya neighborhood in Colombo and Katugampala’s depiction of Port City, a Chinese-owned city under construction in front of Sri Lanka’s capital. Katugampala also contributes a text about Cinema Rio in Kompagngna Veediya, potentially the still-existing place closest to the Nouveau Port created for the film Still Here. At the Nouveau Port, one attendee in Still Here sings “Vedrai, vedrai,” a 1965 song by Luigi Tenco which conveys a sense of resignation and disillusionment, yet holding onto hope for the future. Similarly, patrons at Cinema Rio made bets on horses in races with evocative names like Rage of Bamby, Vento del Drago, Lady Wolf, aspiring for a brighter tomorrow. Katugampala meticulously collected these bets and included them in this book, perhaps suggesting that the individuals living in gentrified and ghettoized urban areas might undergo life changes through an unexpected stroke of luck. Crazy Fish Sing’s various texts and images draw attention to the proximity of places that may seem distant, reflecting on how the hyper-local dimensions of urban spaces like Corvetto and Kompagngna Veediya are superimposed, existing in a relationship of closeness entangled within the affective geographies explored in Still Here. The script of this film was initially conceived as a narrative in which the emerging fictional city of Port Khala advances, presenting a looming threat to the existence of the imaginary historic neighborhood named Tuarith. While these invented geographical locations did not make it to the final cut of the film, they serve as indicators of the director’s combination of emotional and experiential elements in his depiction of space.

By overlapping existing and invented space, Still Here invites audiences to challenge the binary concept of reality and fiction. It prompts a recognition that our perceptions and imaginative constructs play a crucial role in shaping and defining the spaces we encounter. A similar reflection is also sparked by the presence of non-professional and professional actors in Still Here. Indeed, the represented spaces in Katugampala’s film are frequently not reminders of their real occupants but their actual homes, and characters bear the traces of the stories narrated in the film within their bodies instead of referring to it in the abstract or immaterial. These questions emerge from some of Suranga’s handwritten notes included in “Reality vs. Fiction” and from Emma Bond’s text on the “Bodies in Motion.” This text invites us to consider bodies-as-stories, as sites of memorialization and consciousness. Faces communicate, they have a story. These faces look at us when we watch a film as much as we look at them. Too often cinema has depicted “unhomely” people as the idealized, typified, stereotyped Other, without showing the contradictions and irreducible complexities which characterize their lives.

Several other themes run through Crazy Fish Sing. Several more can be unearthed by exploring this book after having watched Still Here (and vice versa). This unidentified narrative object is an act of creative documentation, a manifestation of the warm life trapped inside the digital image, an invitation to cross barriers, borders and categories, and hopefully, an inspiration for future artistic explorations.

• Crazy Fish Sing is published by Yogurt Editions, a Rome-based curatorial platform exploring new directions in contemporary photography.

  It was produced with the support of the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture as part of the Italian Council program (12th edition, 2023), which promotes Italian contemporary art internationally.

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Simone Brioni is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Stony Brook University. He specializes in the literary and cinematic representation and self-representation of migrants, as well as the legacy and memory of Italian colonialism. On these topics, he has directed four documentaries: The Fourth Road (2009; with/about Kaha Mohamed Aden), Aulò (2009; with/about Ribka Sibhatu), Maka (2023; with/about Geneviève Makaping), and Beyond the Frame (2023; with/about Ubah Cristina Ali Farah).