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Purahanda Kaluwara from next month

"Purahanda Kaluwara (Death On a Full Moon Day)," the award winning film by well-known film director Prasanna Vithanage will be screened from next month. The film will come up on 10 screens in the CEL circuit.

z_sas5.jpg (30261 bytes)The film, the fourth by Prasanna, has won the Grand Prix award at the Amiens Film festival, the International Critic's Award - Fribourg and Best Actor (Singapore).

The film written and directed by Prasanna himself is woven around a blind father - Wannihami (Joe Abeywickrama) who refuses to believe that his son is dead.

The lake on the edge of the jungle is almost dry and he collects water from what is left in the lake, but he knows the rain will come soon.

The day rains fall on the day that his soldier son's body, which is in a sealed coffin, is buried. Wannihami who firmly believes that he is alive strongly refuses to sign the papers which will entitle the family to compensation for his son's death.

"Finding a dramatic premise for a film is important to me," says Prasanna, adding that it is the major guiding principle in his search for truth through medium of film.

"So far, all my films have tried to portray the mediocrity of everyday conventional living and how conformity to social rules can hinder a person's search for happiness and the truth about himself or herself."

Prasanna directed his first film "Sisila Gini Gani" (Ice on Fire) in 1992 and the second, Anantha Rathriya (Dark Night of the Soul) in 1996. His third film Pawru Walalu (Walls Within) in 1997 went on to win the Best Actress award at the 1998 Singapore Film festival.

Commenting on his films Prasanna says: "My films have gone against the grain of Sri Lankan filmmakers in many aspects. The most obvious difference is the length of my films."

"I wanted to make films in the way that European, Japanese and other filmmakers do, which means I had to pay attention to details. I believe that persevering with the search for truth invariably leads to brevity and sometimes even silence."

The Purahanda Kaluwara cast also includes Priyanka Samaraweera, Linton Semage, Mahendra Perera, Nayana Hettiarachchi, Kumara Karunananda etc.

The art director of the film is K.A. Milton Perera while the Director of photography is M.D. Mahindapala.

It is produced by Makota Ueda (NHK) and Prasanna Vithanage Productions. [SAS]

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Danesh - a silent star

His name is well-known within the film making industry, but not outside of it. Having actively contributed to 34 films as an Assistant Director, Danesh Lanka Peiris remains a very silent personality.

z_sas4.jpg (26862 bytes)"I did not want to go after publicity and just concentrate on my work," Danesh says.

After completing formal education at Mahanama College, Kollupitiya, Danesh entered the film world with the support of his uncle - Hemasiri Sellapperuma - a very popular Sinhala film director.

" Since the beginning, I have been interested in the technical side of film making, which helped me to get an in-depth knowledge about the film industry."

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Danesh while making the
“Love in London”

The first film he worked on as an Assistant Director was "Chandingeth Chandiya" directed by Sellapperuma. Among his other films are "Neva Gilunath Ban Choon, Nommara 17, Uthura Dakuna, Salambak Handai, Asai Bayai etc. Most of these have been screened over 100 days breaking records on the local silver screen.

"During my film career, I was able to associate with top stars of the local silver screen and I got an opportunity to work in countries like India, Thailand and England as some of the films were shot overseas."

Apart from being an Assistant Director, Danesh has already touched film production. So far, he has produced one film " Soorayo Wedakarayo."

Danesh has also been an assistant director for several teledramas.

We wish Danesh a successful film career.

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US studios trim, delay movies after terror attacks

WASHINGTON (AFP) - With the tragedy surrounding last week's devastating attacks seared into the American consciousness, US movie studios have taken steps to re-edit or delay the release of films depicting scenes now considered insensitive.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Collateral Damage

Among the rejigged productions are several featuring the now-destroyed twin towers of New York's World Trade Centre and some with terrorists as characters.

"Bad Company", an action-comedy starring Anthony Hopkins, has been pushed back indefinitely from its scheduled December release because terrorists, of various ethnic extractions, are the "bad guys" in the film, which also features a suitcase bomb on the verge of detonation, the Hollywood Reporter trade magazine said Thursday.

The film was made by Walt Disney, which announced immediately after the September 11 attacks it would also postpone the release of "Big Trouble", a comedy about a bomb in a suitcase featuring FBI agents.

Another high-profile casualty of the attacks is Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose "Collateral Damage", a story of a man seeking revenge after a terrorist bomb kills his family in a skyscraper, was a yanked from its October 5 release.

Among the films in production being re-tooled to remove potentially offensive scenes is "Men in Black 2", a sequel of the 1997 hit starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

A scene filmed against the backdrop of the twin towers will have to be re-shot, the producers of the film told Variety, the entertainment industry trade daily.

Also, a trailer for "Spider-Man", a live-action movie featuring the comic book-hero bitten by a radioactive spider, has been pulled from theatres because it shows bank robbers trapped in a spiderweb spun between the twin towers. The scene is not in the movie, which is going ahead virtually untouched.

And Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan is having "Nosebleed", a film he was about to begin filming, completely rewritten because it originally portrayed him as a window cleaner on the World Trade Centre who battles terrorists targeting the Statue of Liberty, media reported.

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