WSWS : Arts Review - www.wsws.org (World Socialist Web site)

"An artist must do only what he believes in"

An interview with Sri lankan film director Prasanna Vithanage

30 June 1999
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The following is the first part of an extensive interview with the well-known Sri Lankan film maker Prasanna Vithanage, whose work Pavuru Valalu (Walls Within) was reviewed on the World Socialist Web Site earlier this year:

Vithanage has also directed a film based on Tolstoy's Resurrection (Dark Night of the Soul, 1996.) The directer's latest work is Pura Handa Kaluwara (Death on a Full Moon Day) The film, a Sri Lankan-Japanese co-production, has recieved considerable internatonal acclaim, appearing at a number of film Festivals in Asia and Europe. It was also screened at the Palm Springs International Film Fest in California in January 1999. The organizers of the Singapore festival, where the film was nominated for two prizes and won one, wrote the following synopsis of Death on a Full Moon Day for their catologue:

"For 13 years in northern Sri Lanka, Tamils have been at war with government troops for an independent state. The blind Wannihami lives in village with his daughter Sunanda, while his son Bandara is away fighting as a government soldier. Sunanda's boyfriend considers leaving the village to become a soldier so that he can earn enough money to marry Sunanda. Then one day Bandara arrives home in a coffin."

The state-run Sri Lanka Film Corporation has yet to take steps to make Death on a Full Moon Day available to the public, despite the eagerness of many people to see it.

Participating in the discussion with Vithanage from the WSWS were Piyaseeli Wijegunasinghe, Varuna Alahakoon and Wije Dias.