Official Web Site of Prasanna Vithanage

Boodee Keerthisena, winner of this year’s Presidential Award for Mille Soya (In Search of Wealth [2004]), also raised concerns:

“According to democracy in any given country, there are state-controlled institutions to maintain the standards of local film creations. In Sri Lanka we have called it the ‘Censor Board’, although other countries may give it another title.

“In Sri Lanka,” he continued, “the ‘Censor Board’ has given permission for these antiwar films to be shown throughout the island. This means that if anyone tries to stop the screening of these movies or campaigns to prevent other people seeing them it is clearly anti-democratic and beyond normal rules.”

Veteran director Prasanna Vithanage told the WSWS that he had grave concerns over the military’s attempts to intimidate local filmmakers.

Vithanage began his artistic career as a dramatist and stage director and has made five movies in the last twelve years—Ice on Fire (1992), Dark Night of the Soul (1996), Walls Within (1997), Death on a Full Moon Day (Purahanda Kaluwara [1999]) and August Sun (2004).

Vithanage’s first antiwar film, the internationally acclaimed Death on a Full Moon Day, was banned in 2000 by the Peoples’ Alliance (PA) government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga, the first local movie banned under the PA’s so-called emergency laws. In protest against this blatant attack on democratic rights Vithanage refused to accept the prestigious Sri Lankan Presidential Award for Walls Within, voted the best film for 2000.

Condemning the military’s threats Vithanage said: “When I saw Sarath Weerasekara’s article I suddenly recalled the words of Sarath Amunugama [former Minister for Irrigation and head of the National Film Corporation].

“When my film was banned in 2000, I submitted a petition to the Supreme Court in defense of my fundamental rights. But Amunugama’s official response to the petition justified the ban, claiming that he was ‘duty bound’ as a Cabinet member ‘to prevent any situation that may affect the morale of the security forces, the war effort of the Government, the recruitment drive launched by the armed forces and the police and any violation of the laws of the country by the distribution and the release of Death on a Full Moon Day.’

“And what does Weerasekara says? He claims that ‘through such films, if the services of the troops are condemned or if the soldier and his wife are scoffed at and if the potential youth in the country are discouraged from joining the services then it is time to raise objections... In my opinion in films based on war, love and affection for the soldier should also be included so that a respectable or a dignified picture of a soldier is drawn in the mind of the spectator at the end of the movie.’

“In 2000, I told a press conference that ‘Artists do not have to make films according to government demands’. I would now say that artists shouldn’t have to make films according to military commands.

“This military bullying can only be seen as part of an exercise to drag Sri Lanka back into outright war. In fact, the central question in the current presidential elections is war, so this sort of political agitation and the threats from the military are part of the same program.

“The fate, problems and misery of the masses from the 20-year war that have been depicted in our antiwar films are a fatal blow against this war mongering. That is why they are trying to intimidate us. And to be blunt, these threats against freedom of art reveal a ruling class that is rapidly moving towards dictatorship. This intimidation is not the end, but just the start.

Vithanage said he “highly appreciated” the World Socialist Web Site because every time art or artists faced “difficult situations, such as banning or the recent military threats”, it always “comes forward in defense of art.”

“When Death on a Full Moon Day was banned,” he continued, “the WSWS launched a powerful international campaign, which was an important contribution in forcing the film’s release.

“At the same time it provides accurate political guidance. I agree with the saying that ‘art lags behind the politics of the day’. In the meantime, no art or artist is independent from politics. As Trotsky explains, art can be compared with a flying kite. Art should enjoy the freedom of a kite as it flies in the sky. But the kite is always tied with a thread to a certain point on earth. And that is, politics.”

The military denunciations of Sri Lankan filmmakers are another indication that senior levels of the Sri Lankan military are preparing for a resumption of the bloody conflict in the North and East. They also demonstrate that any return to the island’s fratricidal and deeply unpopular war will be accompanied by a savage assault on the democratic rights of filmmakers, artists and working people as a whole.

The Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the WSWS condemn this attack on freedom of expression and the democratic rights of filmmakers and call on workers, young people and intellectuals to come to their defence. To combat these assaults, the working class cannot rely on any of the existing capitalist parties, but must mobilise independently on the basis of an international socialist program.

We urge our readers to support the SEP and its presidential candidate Wije Dias, who is campaigning to unify all workers, of all backgrounds, in Sri Lanka, South Asia and internationally, around this perspective.

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