The Cruel Bite Of Conscience
Shyamon Jayasinghe
On Prasanna Vithanage’s Movie: “Oba Nethuwa, Oba Ekka”
We ordinary filmgoers are often baffled by the multi-varied kinds and venues of film awards other than the Oscars and Cannes destinations. It appears that almost any film maker in humble Sri Lanka can find a berth at least (leave alone an award) to present his/her product at global level in some sort of festival and come home happy for all the massive effort. We are now being educated about Montreal Film Festival, Asia Pacific Screen Awards, Pusan International Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, Grand Prix at the Amiens Film Festival, Venice Film Festival and so on. It seems endless.
Prasanna Vithanage, born in 1962 and educated at DS Senanayake College, has made great strides in the Sinhala movie industry recording outstanding awards and not mere ‘also-ran’ status at most of the above festivals. Vithanage is both a pride and honour for us, Sri Lankans. His latest, “Oba Nethuwa, Oba Ekka,” (With You, without You) was first released in India this year. One of the best Sinhala movies I have seen is his “Ira Mediyama.”
In getting Indian collaboration and showing his movie in India Prasanna has shown a marketing prescience. The Sri Lankan market, saturated with cheap and shoddy melodramatic tele drama, is not the place to sell a serious movie. Movies are costly to produce and making them to deliver to the Sri Lankan cinemagoer is bound to be ill-fated. The Sri Lankan Film Corporation, set up originally to boost movie production, is a dead duck.
