Vijaya nandasiri biography sample

By Uditha Devapriya –

Films are made. They age. They are as subject to decay as other art-forms. Explains why, at the end of the day, very few are remembered. Those few, I’m willing to bet, would have been cast aside, marginalised, looked over, and in other ways rubbished, because they were unconventional for their time. Makes sense. People thought Picasso was mad. His paintings don’t fetch for anything less than 100,000 dollars today.

Madness and unconventionality, we can conclude then, are hallmarks of genius, in films and paintings and pretty much every other art-form man invented in this world of ours. This is a story of one such film, made here and considered ahead of its time.

Some say our cinema was born in 1947 (with a “broken promise”, apparently). That’s true. History begins with a whimper, though. History is created, on the other hand, with a bang. That “bang” came up in the form of a group of escapees from the Government Film Unit, “fugitives” you could say, who got together and filmed a story which remains un-erasable from our cultural history. “Rekava”, the first real Sinhala film to be made on our soil, was released 60 years ago this year.

“Rekava”, one of those works of art in this country which need no introduction, was footnoted in its day. Time and time again, I have heard of how this simple film, with its unconventional, yet simple theme, was rubbished by both audiences and critics. It curried favour with European critics, however, won for Lester Sri Lanka’s first nomination for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and became a catalyst for the 20 other films he’d make over the next 50 years. And yet, when I see it today, I am neither surprised nor anguished at the fact that our people initially ignored it.

For “Rekava” was, in the truest sense of that word, unconventional. Not because it was courageous enough to tackle its theme the way it did, and certainly not because it was shot, for the first time, on locatio

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GED GOONERATNE

A stalwart of Royal answers his Maker’s call

Well done thou good and faithful servant

T.G. Gooneratne,  affectionately known to one and all as Ged, passed away on August 2 after a brief illness  at the age of 82 and was cremated at the General Cemetery, before a large and distinguished crowd of old Royalists, members of the legal profession, leaders of the corporate sector and others.

At the time of his passing away Ged was a consultant to the legal firm Julius and Creasy where he became a Senior Partner in 1994 after a long and distinguished career  of 28 years at the Attorney General’s Department, where he headed the State Attorneys  Division from  19 80- 1994. He served as a member of the disciplinary panel of the Supreme Court from 1992 having been appointed by the then Chief Justice.

Ged was called to the Bar in 1957 and was an Attorney at Law, Notary Public, and JPUM for the District of Colombo, a founder Life Member and honorary Life Member of the Colombo Law Society, and a founder Life Member, Trustee, and Honorary Life Member of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka.

In his ‘personal life’ Ged was a member of the Legal Committee of the National Council of the Y.M.C.A, member of the forum of the Organisation of Professional Associations and mostly a very active and loyal life member and Vice President of the Royal College Old Boys Union where he was also a trustee. He was a Senior V. President of the Royal College Lawyers Association, and held numerous other positions of trust and responsibility at various times  on the College Council serving with exceptional honour and conscientiousness.

I have known Ged for over the last 30 years whilst associating with him in the Royal College Union and our friendship grew as I worked with him on various Committees on the Council since the early 80’s, mostly when he was elected to the position of Chairman of the Rugby Matches Organising Committee.

Royal was for h

KNO Dharmadasa, in the Island, 4 and 5 June 2013

“Maname is not only without question the finest thing I have seen on the Sinhalese stage”, wrote Regi Siriwardena in his regular column on the arts to the Ceylon Daily News on November 6, 1956, and added further , ” It is also one of the three or four most impressive dramatic performances in any language I have been privileged to attend.” Such an adulatory statement from a critic who was widely considered the highest authority on the arts in the country was something totally unexpected as far as the Maname team who had come down from Peradeniya were concerned. The producer- director Dr. E.R. Sarchchandra, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sinhalese in the one and only university in the island, the University of Ceylon, had warned his young cast that there was a possibility of adverse reaction from the audiences in Colombo. He had had a short meeting of the cast just before setting out to the metropoiis and told them not to get disheartened if that was to happen. In fact he himself called the production ” an experiment” Writing “A Note to the Production” for the programme Note handed to the audience on the first night, November 3, at the Lionel Wendt Theatre, he stated ” the aim of this experiment is both to explore potentialities as a traditional form may possess in the search for an indigenous tradition in drama as well as to bring to light another type of play which may be enjoyed on its own merits.”

Modest Aspirations: This was indeed a modest statement. Given the background in which the Sinhala theatre of the day was struggling for survival, the nurtiya musical imported from North India in late 19th century had outgrown its use and the melodramatic Jayamanne plays which inherited its mantle were almost extinct as those plays were being put into celluloid one by one, the task of finding