Vithanage counts himself among the lucky few Sri Lankan filmmakers, along with Vimukthi Jayasundara and Lester James Peries, whose films have travelled widely. In fact, he has even made a film by the name Machan with Italian producer Uberto Passolini, which was a big hit.

“I have been lucky in that sense. This film had a budget of about Rs 65 lakh in Indian currency, which is miniscule by Indian standards. But all my films have been released in Sri Lanka and crossed 50 days, helping me recover around half the cost, while the rest is recovered from international sales. That’s how I have been surviving for past 20 years,” he says.

The director, like his idol Ray, earlier believed that he should concentrate solely on the market he knew, in his case, Sri Lanka. “I was influenced by Ray’s famous comment that one should always concentrate on one market. Only for Shatranj Ke Khiladi did he go abroad. But with time, things have changed. If not for India, my films would not have reached the international stage. From post-production work to film festivals here, India has been a launching pad for my films,” he shares.

Vithanage reveals that Akasa Kusum has been challenging for him. “It was challenging to be truthful about an industry the insides of which I know so well. It has autobiographical elements of many actresses. Sri Lanka being a small industry, everybody knows each other. With the film industry as the backdrop, I’ve explored what it means to be a woman,” he says.

The veteran is, however, worried at the state of affairs of the industry back home. “It’s shrinking. In the 70s, we had a closed economy, so no foreign films were allowed. There was a quota for Indian films. Then when the economy opened, foreign films entered and naturally got the major part of the market. The subsidies given to the industry have also been taken away. There are no buyers, so the producer himself has to release the film. It’s not practical. Most of the time, producers have not gotten their money back. Now, Sri Lanka makes just 15 to 20 productions a year, when in the past, it used to make about 50 to 60. But the good thing is that we still have a middle-class audience who go and watch good films in the theatres,” he explains.

Page 1>>