Being Human

Being Human is set against the backdrop of a newly prosperous Sri Lanka. The country is home to a burgeoning contemporary art market that emerged in the wake of a prolonged civil conflict between the national government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which ended in 2009. The film confronts the political erasure of Eelam, where Christopher Kulendran Thomas’s family is from, as it examines the foundations and legacies of humanism—a Western belief system that insists on an individual’s indivisibility, agency, and authenticity. It asks: What does the human in human rights stand for? And who determines whose rights fall within its protections?