Film directed by Kannan Arunasalam

Young activists lead Sri Lanka’s 2022 uprising, toppling an authoritarian president — but can fragile hope survive in a country built on forgetting?

Republic of Amnesia (2025) follows the rise and fall of Sri Lanka’s Aragalaya (“The Struggle”) — the youth-led protest movement that forced authoritarian president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country in 2022. At its heart are young activists like Melani, Buwanaka and Jeana, who organise marches, face arrest, and confront a political system built to endure. As they challenge a powerful dynasty, their struggle raises a deeper question: can fragile hope survive in a country built on forgetting? As the spirit of the Aragalaya ripples across Asia, inspiring youth movements from Bangladesh to Indonesia, the film looks beyond the moment itself. It asks what remains and what is lost when a movement fades, and suggests that the struggle for democracy lies not only in institutions or leaders, but in the stories a society chooses to preserve.

Filmmaker Kannan Arunasalam and South Asia Program Senior Manager Daniel Bass will join for a conversation and Q&A after the screening.

Kannan Arunasalam is a British-Sri Lankan filmmaker working across documentary film and moving-image installation. His work explores memory, political resistance, and the legacies of conflict and colonialism. His installation The Tent (2019) was presented in a solo exhibition at Yorkshire Contemporary. His documentary Sri Lanka’s Rebel Wife (2021) was shortlisted for Best Documentary at the DIG Investigative Film Awards. He recently completed two feature documentaries: Republic of Amnesia (2025, UK/Sri Lanka), examining Sri Lanka’s 2022 Aragalaya protest movement, and Possible Landscapes (2025, US/Trinidad & Tobago), which premiered at the BlackStar Film Festival and explores intergenerational environmental experience.

In Sinhala, Tamil and English with English subtitles. More at republicofamnesia.film.

Come and explore international research from students and researchers at the Einaudi Center for International Studies. Our undergraduate Global Scholars will present posters on their international aid projects and our Global Research Fellows will give speed talks on interdisciplinary research.

Global Research Speed Talks

Global Research Fellows will present three-minute speed talks on their interdisciplinary and international research.

Fellows are advanced graduate students, Cornell postdocs, and visiting and local scholars. They network with a diverse group of colleagues and work together to grapple with pressing global challenges. Applications for the next cohort will open in fall 2026.

Global Scholars Showcase

Global Scholars will present a showcase of their capstone projects providing public commentary and perspectives on international aid.

Undergraduate global scholars advocate for building democracy on campus and around the world. They have partnered with Einaudi Center practitioner in residence Paul Kaiser and faculty mentor Ed Mabaya—expert researchers and practitioners on international development—to design their projects. Applications for the next cohort will open in fall 2026.

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The Einaudi Spring Showcase is hosted by the Einaudi Center for International Studies.

Department of History of Art & Visual Studies Findley Lecture Series.

Join us for a talk by Murad Khan Mumtaz, (Associate Professor, Williams College).

This Findley Lecture will take place in the AD White House's Guerlac Room.

Abstract

Islamic art is often misrepresented as an iconophobic tradition. As a result of this assumption, the polyvalence of figural artworks made for Hindustan’s Muslim audiences has remained hidden in plain view. By combining an art historical survey with an analysis of primary Indo-Persian literature, this talk shows how figurative painting was intimately linked to a unique Indo-Muslim religious expression that had a wide circulation across South Asia.

Biography

Murad Khan Mumtaz is an associate professor in the Art Department at Williams College. He examines historical intersections of art, literature and religious expression in South Asia, with a primary focus on Indo-Muslim patronage. By combining art history with textual analysis, his recent book, Faces of God: Images of Devotion in Indo-Muslim Painting (Brill, 2023), examines the cultural contexts within which these Islamicate images of devotion were made and viewed. Murad is also an artist trained in traditional Hindustani painting techniques which he teaches at Williams. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions internationally.

European History Colloquium - Atina Grossmann, Distinguished Professor of History, The Cooper Union
Between “Orient” and European Catastrophe: Jewish Refugees from National Socialism in Iran and India 1935-1948.

Atina Grossman is Professor of History in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at The Cooper Union in New York City. She received a Ph.D from Rutgers University and a B.A. from The City University of New York. Her current research focuses on “Trauma: Privilege, Adventure in Transit: Jewish Refugees from National Socialism in Iran, India, and Central Asia in Transnational Context.” She has been recently appointed to the Editorial Board of the American Historical Review (journal of the American Historical Association, HA) and to the Editorial Advisory Board of Holocaust and Genocide Studies (journal of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) and Member of the Scholars Advisory Board of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Battery Park, NYC.

International Fair showcases Cornell's global opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. Explore the fair and find out about international majors and minors, language study, study abroad, funding opportunities, global internships, Cornell Global Hubs, and more.

The International Fair is sponsored by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and Office of Global Learning (both part of Global Cornell) in partnership with the Language Resource Center.

Register on CampusGroups to receive a reminder. Registration is not required.