Cinema is an art beyond theatre - Inoka Sathyanganee

Aravinda HETTIARACHCHI

Inoka Sathyanganee fits the description of a classical artist who has found her wings in the field of film direction in Sri Lanka; a female in a significant male role. She has taken to the medium in her tender age. When children her age played with dolls she found herself lost in pictures. Later her attraction to pictures pushed her soul towards cinema

Inoka Sathyanganee

She was crazy over films and consequently insisted her parents to take her for films. Her desire and talent to write made her the script writer in all the dramas held in her school. She was not keen on formal education. She joined Telecine as a trainee director of TV commercials.

Unsatisfied with the commercial aspects of it all, she moved to Teleview while studying cinema as a subject in OCIC (Office Catholique Internationale du Cinema).

She made her debut one-episode tele-drama (‘Nidi Nathi Rayaka Sihinayak’) for Teleview. Thereafter she created a series of episodes ‘Urumayak Nathi Uruma Laddo’. Then Rupavahini has categorized this as an adults only tele-drama and rejected it. Later, she had a chance of showing it through ITN and there she got the Best Young Tele Drama Director of the year award. Consequently, the National Film Development Board sponsored her to do a film. This is how her first film ‘Sulan Kirillee’ took flight. We had a chance of sharing some of her ideas with us.

Q: How do you define cinema as an art form?

A: I think cinema has its own capability and to attract human minds as a magnetic field among all other medias in art. The artistic value of a cinematic work totally depend on the audience. And cinema has a vast capacity to travel through various dimensions in human mind. It is a media even beyond the theatre or any other aesthetic art form. Cinema and its own parameters make us travel beyond the variety of our perceptions. It placed ourselves in an ‘other’ dwelling place of human thought. That is the truth even after 100 years of its history. Therefore still cinema could not be replaced by any other visual media. Cinema is the most powerful media that can deal differently with various ways common and uncommon to the world.

Q: Is feminism a dominant ideology in your cinema?

A: No. I can prove it by my next movie. I believe this is a world of male and female species. You cannot avoid both these species in any case. One of my documentaries (Thuttiri Mal) on Free Trade Zones life in Lanaka has screened on Rupavahini. The process of doing this documentry inspired my soul on the critical issues of women. And I had an opportunity to study strange issues of women.

A girl in Katunayake Amandoluva village who was hiding her pregnancy and delivered the child in a toilet. She got caught to her boarding owner (a retired principle) while she was throttling her child to death. This retired principle and his wife saved the child’s life by taking her to the hospital. And they are the people today who look after this child. This story shocked my soul and help me a lot to look through the depths of women.

Woman is still a secondary citizen in this society. I myself a woman as well. I was aware that a woman have less privileges comparing to the males in society. Consequently my films in future will carryout womens issues. Yet I don’t like that you call me a feminist. Because then it becomes a project of an feminist activist. It will suppress the cinema artist in me. Consequently the feminist activist or that dry ideologist will over-determine in myself. I don’t like to be just an ideologist. I am an artist who interests in women’s human issues, and that is it all about.

Q: Do you think our cinema reached international standards?

A: Lankan cinema is a minute dot in the world map of cinema. It is a truth we had some International awards. Yet as an industry we are unable to reach international standards.

Lester James Peiris has unclosed this island’s cinema into the world. He was rewarded international awards after 1965. Thereafter our cinema artists moved slowly. Yet the third generation after Prasanna Withanage has again accelerated this move. Young cinema artists such as me, Ashoka Handagama, Vimukthi Jayasundare, Sathyajith Maitipe and etc came with international awards.

We showed the international world a classical cinema of this island. Yet this is not enough. We still have no opportunity to release a film in a foreign cinema hall. There may be rare cases. As an industry we are lagging behind. Our films are still unable to establish in the foreign market. We still in a process of achieving this target. This might be successful or not.

The world cinema is a massive canvas and We are just a dot on it. The State government should take the responsibility to produce and sell our films to the foreign market. My first filmƒ??Sulan Kirilleeƒ?? was sponsored by the government film co-operation and took the highest international awards (11 awards) in that year. Our generation have gained international awards in 12 A grade film festivals around the world. Among us, the highest credit should go to Vimukthi Jayasundare. Yet still cricket gets the highest credits than the cinema.

Our cinema has been already brought up by our seniors such as Lester James Peiris, Darmasena Pathiraja, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake and etc. First the State must identify all these cinema artiste as dignified citizens in this country. And it should protect cinema as ancient Sigiriya or Mahamevnava.

The Euro-US countries and India have a massive cinema culture and an Industry than us. And cinema is academically accepted in countries such as Bangladesh and Maldives even they don’t have a macro-culture for cinema. This isle hasn’t enough institutions to educate its cinema artists. Sripali is not enough to do that. It’s students even comes to learn from us. This proves that they are lack of enough guidance.

The State should be responsible until we achieved good standards as an industry. In India, the lower cultured people who taste popular cinema. Yet there are a lot of educated groups of perception who taste classical cinema. We don’t have such a culture. We have no fans’ groups of such a refine discourse.

Yet I believe that popular cinema should also take place as classical cinema. We should give the people of simple taste what they want. Basically there are levels such as popular, middle path, artistic and more classical or experimental in cinema. Yet our country today produced only 10 films per year.

Q: What is your opinion on the film critics in this isle nation?

A: Critics are very much important for the development of films. Critic is the bridge between the the film and its spectator. Unfortunately real critics in this country are being extinct like dinosaurs. We have sort of critics who watch films and just write ‘something to gain a mere name out of it. Most of them ask for bribes to write in direct and indirect ways. They do ‘criticisms’ of favoritism. Only a handful of well reputed critics such as Gamini Weragama, Gunasiri de Silva, Saman Wickramaarachchi and etc are away from this malpractice.

Most of others are writing for money or privileges. If they get satisfied by the client, then they just write a synopsis of a critic about the film by only admiring it. And we all put the blame on the critics. Yet, in this country, critics are not been sufficiently paid. They therefore don’t have a dignity in this society. There should a better paying scheme for the critics. For instance, Indian critics are much more reputed comparing to our critics.

Zhao: The Wushu wizard in Sri Lanka

Ishara JAYAWARDANE

The world is a small world indeed. Nations are being united by so many forces. Wushu an ancient Chinese sport dating back to 2,500 years, is also set to become a Sri Lankan way of life.

Zhao Qianqian is from the Chinese province of Shandong. At first glance she seems mild mannered and affable - which she is. But there is another side to Zhao, she is also an expert at Wushu. A teacher and a competitor.

zhao in various battle stances

“Wushu teaches us not to fight but to defend and protect. Wushu teaches you not to hate someone. It is very good for health. It is not only a sport for boys. Even girls can do Wushu.

In Sri Lanka the girls are good at Wushu. Many girls can play, they have good bodies, the girls should learn more,” said Zhao.

At the age of 10 Zhao took up Wushu, in fact she took to it quite late. At China children take up Wushu at the age of three to six years. Zhao was very lucky, she had a really good coach and he taught her many lessons concerning Wushu.

“My coach motivated me. He came to my school and selected me. At first I simply studied. After 10 years I went to Sports School and took up Wushu,” said Zhao. Zhao started doing Wushu from 1997. Her first year coach was Xie Pei Qing. After 2000 he told Zhao’s mother that he could not teach her more as her knowledge was excellent and it was time for her to go to a higher level.

“My second coach was a lady Lin Shu Ping. She was a fine coach. She was like a mother to me. Her knowledge of Wushu was very deep. She looked after all her students. We loved her so much,” added Zhao. In 2001 she joined the Shandong Wushu team.

“I was selected to the Beijing Sports university. And I started teaching from my university. I helped my teacher to teach students.

This was the first time I started teaching students. I coached the Shandong province in the 2002 competition,” stated Zhao.

There are many Wushu schools in Shandong. The best in those schools are selected to the Shandong province team.

In those Wushu schools the goals are single minded- complete training in Wushu.

“I want to develop Chinese Wushu in Sri Lanka because I am Chinese. I am starting some classes for school students. I was here in 2008. I came here and taught Sri Lankan coaches. Her Beijing University teacher was Ma Lao Shi/Ma Xue Zhi. Zhao has taken part in almost eight tournaments.

The school Wushu Federation in Sri Lanka needed someone to come to Sri Lanka and train the coaches and Ma lao Shi proposed her name.

“Kung Fu and Wushu are the same thing. In China we called it Wushu. Kung Fu was popularized by Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Those movies don’t call it Wushu but Chinese Kung fu. In China we have competitive Wushu and Traditional Wushu” said Zhao.

Wushu was popularized as Kung Fu due to the films such as that of David Carradine. Certain things were added to Wushu over the years.

Other countries do not know much about Wushu but they know about Kung Fu.

In the 1920’s Chinese Wushu Association was formed composed of teachers from various schools. This was probably when the Kung Fu terminology began. This was first demonstrated in the 1936 Olympic games.

In 1950’s Chinese Wushu Federation was formed and in 1989 World Wushu Federation was formed.

“Wushu has taught me to be a good person. I teach all my students to be good people. Your heart has to be good,” concluded Zhao.

Celebrity faces before their fame

Charmaine Fernando

Beyonce	Eminem	Halle Berry	Cristina A
Brittney	Angelina Jollie	Janet J	JayLo
Julia Roberts	Keanu Reeves	Lianardo Di Capri	Madonna

They were all pretty faces born to be famous someday. But the fact is they didn’t know it then.

When we stare at their sweet innocent faces we cannot help but sigh with remorse at what fame and riches have done to them. Today despite their highly made up facade they hide agony, some trying to get off their wrong tracks that had driven them off road to despair.

They do drugs possibly fame came too early before they developed enough guts to prepare for it.

The shock of it all had driven them in to what they should not. Some are in rehab, some with broken homes. But they all smile for the paparazzi through a mask of makeover. If only they knew better.

Nevertheless we cannot help but envy their luck and riches not forgetting their enormous talent and beauty which had made them the celebrities the common people simply drool over.