Set in a small northern Sri Lankan village in 1989, Burning Birds is a film critical of society. Director Sanjieewa Pushpakumara considers this society in which social violence is inflicted upon a female breadwinner. After an illegal militant group kills her husband, ordinary housewife Kusum does anything to support her eight children and her mother-in-law. However, there is not only a huge amount of work to do for a poor and powerless working class widow, but she also has to endure the contempt and surliness of a male-oriented society. She finally loses the last vestiges of dignity when she is driven to prostitution and in the end, she makes a truly extreme choice. Kusum’s situation is a bitter criticism of the realities of female labor in Sri Lankan society, where there is no institutional protection of women’s rights, but Pushpakumara uses careful camera walking and directing. He doesn’t adopt the documentary style often used for films with this kind, but he maximizes the absurdity of Kusum’s situation through mise-en-scène like a stage play. (KIM Ji-seok)