Pooja Power

Ruwini JAYAWARDANA

She is on cloud number 10 right now. With last year’s biggest hit Aasai Mang Piyabanna, a Bala film project underway and shooting on the sets of Dammika Siriwardena’s much talked about movie, Suwanda Danuna Jeewithe Sri Lankan born Indian actress, Pooja Umashankar is on the run. She was in the city for a few action-packed days when Daily News ‘Projector’ caught up with her.

Pictures by Tennyson Edirisinghe

You have become quite popular among film enthusiasts in Sri Lanka. Wouldn’t you like to dedicate yourself to the field?

I am not sure what kind of path my future will take but for now as I am involved in a Sri Lankan production I wish to give it my best shot.

My Sri Lankan films are tokens of love for my fans in Sri Lanka while Indian films are my career. Many Sri Lankans have questioned me on when I am going to act in a Sinhala film again. When this project landed on my lap it was a way of obliging their request.

Is the Sinhala cinema scene very different from Indian cinema?

The work atmosphere, work culture and protocol is different but technically everything else is the same. It differs in India from state to state.

Malayalam and Sri Lankan films are very similar even in terms of the working culture. There is a feeling of togetherness and you are like one big happy family during the shoots.

Which is your favourite out of the four Sinhala films that you have taken part in so far?

I love each one of them. I took part in each film because each character is different from the other. In Channa Perera’s Anjalika I was a very innocent girl from a rural village while in Aasai Mang Piyabanna Udayakantha Warnasuriya had toned down the role. Sumithra Peries’ Yahaluwo provided me with a mature character of a mother and wife. Now I am completely at ease in Suwanda Danuna Jeewithe because the character is very similar to me. I am finding it very easy to portray her. She is very carefree.

Is that why you took on this film?

That is one of the reasons. I read the script and loved the story. It is a very touching love story, just the kind to capture people’s hearts. Dammika uncle, Jayantha ayya (Donald Jayantha) and Roshan were all part of it and I am happy to act with the entire team. I like the entire package that was offered to me so that made my decision.

This is your second film with Roshan. Does the chemistry get better when you work the second time together?

I am extremely comfortable working with him. Since we are friends we discuss how we should present our scenes. When you work with a new-comer you are never sure if he or she will take your decisions in a positive manner and I also look forward to a suggestion on how I could improve my act. The best part about acting with Roshan is that he understands.

You are suppose to look into the eyes of an actor when you do the scenes. Thankfully the camera does not detect this because it is extremely hard to look in the eye and recite dialogues with some Indian actors. Some of them are difficult to work with. It is very pleasant working with Roshan and I am able to look him in the eyes while doing the scenes.

You have taken part in a large number of commercial productions in comparison to artistic cinema. Don’t you like to take on complex characters?

Certainly. I love to try my hands on such roles and in fact that is exactly what I am doing in India right now. Bala’s Naan Kadavul sees me in a role of a blind beggar. They have actually put some sort of covering in my eyes so that I cannot see and it takes almost two hours of make up to make my skin brownish. It is a very challenging role and I don’t know whether I would ever come across such a character again.

What lured you into the film industry?

Absolutely nothing. It all happened by chance. I was shopping one day when a director noticed me. He asked me to act in his film and I refused immediately. When I went back to hostel and started joking about the incident my mates scolded me. It was study leave for us so I decided to take part in Jeeva’s Ullam Ketkumae. I specialised in HRM marketing so my goal was to join a company.

What are your future projects?

I have been working on Naan Kadavul for the past year. I did not take up other projects in between because I wanted to be a part of their sets till the end. If something worthwhile comes across my path I’ll consider being a part of the movie.

Are you considering marriage in the near future?

(Laughing). That is a million dollar question that everyone keeps asking me! Yes definitely but the problem is that ever since nursery till my MBA I have been residing in hostels. Then I got into cinema and my work kept me engrossed. I did not get the chance or time to meet people and socialise. I do not like to start a relationship and end up marrying someone else.

You need time to get to know a person and since I do not have time to spare at the moment I am not focusing on the subject. However the question will pop up someday so I will have to find someone soon.(smiling) My father, however, is searching high and low for a suitable partner for me. It is difficult since people think that I am used to a luxurious life because I am an actress. Simplicity is the key to my life, I do not

like to be dolled up in rich clothes, make-up and jewels.

Twenty years from now how would you like to look back on your life?

I would like to be extremely proud of the person that I was because at the end of the day it is tomorrow that matters. Money and fame is nothing compared to a good name. You might have done lots of good deeds but people tend to judge you by a black mark. I have learnt from others’ mistakes. Rumours will always be there but if I could hold my head high, walk with confidence and make my family proud of me, then I am content.

Maestro Francoise Truffaut

K.S. Sivakumaran

If we were to speak about Masters of International Cinema then we should certainly remember the late French critic and filmmaker Francoise Truffaut.

Film enthusiasts of earlier generation would have enjoyed seeing his films- notably ‘Jules and Jim’, ‘The 400 Blows’, ‘The Green Room’ et al. Truffaut was one of the eminent film critics of the French film journal Cahier du Cinema.

He turned a filmmaker when the critics of that magazine were challenged to make films to show what they meant by aesthetic cinema. They did and so did Truffaut.

To know more about Francois Truffaut we must turn to our Masters. We shall retell what the internationally known Sir Lester James Peries and writer, critic and filmmaker Tissa Abeysekera had said.

Lester said: “In a way it is easier to say what Truffaut was NOT. He was not a revolutionary filmmaker who changed the language of cinema like his contemporaries Jean Luc Godard or Alain Resnais, nor did he create his own hermetically sealed would like Robert Bresson or Carl Dreyer or Ozu” Young readers please note that the names mentioned above are a few more of Masters of cinema.

Lester adds: He worked within a fairly conventional narrative form and within the mainstream commercial cinema without of course making any compromises as an artist.”

Tessa Abeysekera confesses: “I delight in the works of filmmakers as diverse as Bergmann Kurusowa and Ozu, Ray and Antonioni, Tarkovsky and Ford. But no filmmaker has touched me as deeply as this gentle poet of the French New Wave. It is strange that I, who grew up in a traditional Buddhist-Asiatic culture should find kinship with a French filmmaker whose atheism and irreverence to convention are obvious.”

I am not sure whether the present artistic filmmakers all around the world would agree with Francoise Truffaut when he said:

“I think that colourhas done almost as much harm to the cinema as television.

“One has to fight against too great a realism in films: if not there is no art.

“At the start of the New wave, in order to exist, we had to bring things down to the minimum, to go back to silent films and they were dubbed later.

At a second phase we arrived at direct sound, and then on top of that came colour, and people forgot to analyze the phenomenon. From the moment that a film is in colour, that it is shot in the street, nowadays, with the sun and the shadows and the dialogue covered by the noise of motor bikes, well, it is no longer cinema. It’s not art. It’s boring....”

The above statements were made by him somewhere in the late 1970s. Another interesting point he made was that” A perfectly ordinary movie with energy can turn out to be better cinema than a film with’ intelligent’ intentions listlessly executed.

Cinematic success is not necessarily the result of good brain work, but of a harmony of existing elements in ourselves that we may not have even been conscious of: a fortunate fusion f subject and our deepest feelings, an accidental coincidence of our own preoccupations at certain moments of life and the public’s.”

Try to watch some of his and other Masters’ films. You will move away from badly done Movies.

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ABC Family buys ‘Potter’ rights

ABC Family has secured cable rights to the “Harry Potter” series by purchasing the rights to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, as well as Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, 10 months before its theatrical debut.

The “Potter” series’ first four films are already under contract with the family network. The senior VP of program acquisitions and scheduling for ABC Family says the movies are a staple of the network’s annual “25 Days of Christmas” programming, and often get key time slots.

Variety reports that ABC Family also bought exclusive rights to Happy Feet, and Nancy Drew, while acquiring second play rights to Fred Claus behind TBS, and TMNT behind Cartoon Network.

Source: Variety

Overseas laurels for Sakkarakatti

After a spectacular opening, thanks to the opera composed by AR Rahman, ‘Sakkarakatti’ is now attaining laurels beyond the four seas.

The usual speculations rage high abroad for flicks starring Rajinikanth or Kamal Haasan. If not otherwise movies directed by the likes of Shankar, Mani Ratnam gains an overseas market, for they are sure to enthrall the audience with their magnum opus.

The habitual occurrence has been renovated for Sakkarakatti as the movie starring an all new cast in the lead has bagged a red carpet entry for the first time in history.

About 32 prints had been distributed to be screened abroad. Later, more prints were dealt to meet the demand.

Sakkarakatti is screening at the Premiere Concord, Dehiwala.