Visakesa Chandrasekaram

Visakesa Chandrasekaram is a lawyer, researcher and an artist. He has made three feature films: Sayapethi Kusuma (Frangipani), 2014, which won the Best International Film Award in 2015 Rio LGBT Film Festival; Paangshu (Earth), 2019, which won the Jury Award of 2019 Religions Today Film Festival; and Munnel (Sand), 2023, which won the 2023 Tiger Jury Award at International Film Festival of Rotterdam. He has also made a documentary titled Payanam (Journey) that was premiered in 2024 Sheffield Documentary Film Festival. He has written and directed several stage plays including Forbidden Area, 2000, which won the Gratiean Prize in Sri Lanka. He has published two novels—Tigers Don’t Confess, 2011 and the King and the Assassin, 2014. Visakesa has worked in Sri Lanka as a human rights lawyer and in Australia as a consultant to the NSW Government. He has received a doctorate from the Australian National University for his research on the use of confessionary evidence under counter-terrorism laws. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, UNSW Sydney.