Elephants & Squirrels

As a Sri Lankan artist traces stolen artefacts across continents, science’s mask of neutrality begins to crumble. Raising urgent questions of ownership, restitution, and imperial injustice, the film asks: who truly decides which histories belong to whom?

When artist Deneth Piumakshi Veda Arachchige uncovers cultural artefacts – alongside human and animal remains from an Indigenous Sri Lankan Adivasi community – held in Swiss museums, a colonial injustice resurfaces. Collected in the early 20th century by two prominent Swiss cousins, naturalists operating under the guise of scientific research, these meticulously preserved objects now sit at the centre of global debates over rightful ownership. Following the trail of the Sarasin cousins and moving between Sri Lanka and the bureaucracies of Switzerland, Elephants & Squirrels confronts the legacy of colonial violence, asking how histories can be reclaimed, responsibility acknowledged, and meaningful bridges built today.

– Saulė Savanevičiūtė