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Tuesday, 22 May 2012 |
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Lankan film director Dharmasena Pathiraja has been called a rebel with a cause: a socially conscious and engaged filmmaker who has skillfully and creatively used his medium to tell stories addressing current realities and issues. If Lester James Peries was the pathfinder of an indigenous Sinhala cinema that resonated with Sri Lanka’s political, social and cultural revolution during the mid-1950s, Pathiraja has been a pioneer of the Lankan cinema’s ‘second revolution’ that took off in the 1970s. As Professor Wimal Dissanayake, a leading scholar of Asian cinema and communication, noted: “He (Pathiraja), more than any filmmaker of his time, succeeded in forging a very close alliance between cinema and the public sphere in Sri Lanka.” Today we start off with a few questions that offer us a glimpse of the enduring cinematic legacy of this versatile filmmaker. 1. After trying his hand in short films for a few years, Dharmasena Pathiraja made his first feature film in 1974. It tracks the life of a group of unemployed friends who live in a working class flat and their quest for the meaning of life. They ultimately turn to crime -- but not before some insightful comments on the situation of youth looking for direction. What was its title? 2. Directed by Dharmasena Pathiraja, this landmark Sinhala movie was about stresses of life in a small, rural Lankan village. It earned actress Malani Fonseka a special Diploma for female performance at the 8th Moscow International Film festival in 1978. This was for her lead role in the movie as Susila. Incidentally, this was also the first international award won by a Lankan actress. What was this film?
3. Udumbara Hina-henawa is a popular film song from a Sinhala film directed by Dharmasena Pathiraja. Written by W Jayasiri with music was composed by Premasiri Kemadasa, the song was sung by T M Jayaratne and Ivor Dennis. In which Pathiraja movie was this song found? 4. Dharmasena Pathiraja was the first mainstream Sinhala film director to direct a Tamil-language film in Sri Lanka. Titled Ponmani (Younger Sister, 1978), the story was set in Jaffna and traced the fortunes and concerns of an economically depleted upper caste, lower middle class family. It was described as “an evocative film about land, women, romance and tragedy, narrated in an idiom of understatement.” It was based on a story by which Lankan writer in Tamil? 5. Another urban film that Pathiraja made was Paradige (On the Run, 1980) which he considers one of his favourites -- even though it was not widely discussed by critics. He says it deals with “displacement but without much sadness for that loss of rootedness”. The screenplay was based on a short story by a fiction writer in Sinhala whom Pathiraja has called “one of the greatest short story writers of our time”. Who wrote the original story and was also involved in the screenplay of Paradige? 6. In 1981, this Dharmasiri Pathiraja feature film starring Joe Abeywickrama, Malani Fonseka, Henry Jayasena and Daya Tennakone won the Presidential Film Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Out of seven feature films he made from 1974 to 2001, this was the first occasion where he wrote a screenplay for a movie. This 1981 movie revolved around a retired old soldier and an ageing prostitute. What was its name? 7. Name the popular American author and aviator - well known for his inspirational writing - who said: “In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.”
8. Who is she? University academic turned Parliamentarian, she was a recent Prime Minister of New Zealand who served three successive terms from 1999 to 2008. She then became the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in April 2009, and is the first woman to lead this major UN organization. She is also the Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, programmes and departments working on development issues.
9. Where in 1824 was the first tea plants brought from China were planted in Sri Lanka, then Ceylon? It was a non-commercial planting done for demonstration purposes. Commercial plantations in Ceylon did not commence until 1867. 10. American athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, in 100 meters, 200 meters, long jump and 4x100 meters relay. However, he nearly missed the finals of the long jump, because his first two jumps were declared fouls. He was saved when someone advised him to jump some distance before the official takeoff spot, so that his jump would definitely be valid. The German athlete who gave this friendly advice to Jesse Owens was seen as the ‘perfect Aryan’ by the host Nazis, and later came second in the same event. He was the first to congratulate Owens on the victory. Who was this German athlete? 11. In 1829, an American inventor and entrepreneur produced and popularised the first wood and graphite pencil in the United States. At the time, most people wrote with quill pens and ink. It was the American Civil War (1861-65) that created a demand for a dry, clean, portable writing instrument and suddenly, the humble pencil was in big demand. This inventor came to Ceylon in 1838 to arrange for export of graphite from the H L De Mel Company mines. The first Ceylon graphite traveled to America as ballast in the early sailing vessels returning to New England from Ceylon. Who was this populariser of the modern ‘lead’ pencil?
12. Name the American statesman, founding father of the Union, man of letters and twice the US President who once said, “Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper”. 13. Since the dawn of the Space Age in October 1957, many unmanned, automatic space probes have been launched by space-faring nations. On 13 September 1959, a moon probe built and launched by the then Soviet Union became the first human-made spacecraft to land on another celestial body. The probe, weighting 390.2 kg (or 860.2 pounds), actually crashed on to the Moon. What was its name? 14. The word ‘sadism’ was derived from Marquis de Sade and his life (his later days in the asylum of Charenton) which was depicted in the movie The Quills (2000) directed by Phillip Kaufman. It starred Kate Winslet, Joaquine Phoenix Michael Caine and this Australian actor who was nominated for Best Actor Oscar for playing Marquis de Sade. Who is he? 15. This European city, the starting point of the 2010 Tour de France, was once destroyed by German bombing during the Blitzkrieg. It is one of the largest port cities in Europe, and only surpassed by the port of Shanghai, China. Although the biggest port city in Europe, it is not the economic enter of the European Union. What is this city? Last week’s answers1. Henry King ‘Hank’ Ketcham (1920 - 2001) |
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