Past forward

Ishara JAYAWARDANE

They reflect the grandeur of past decades and are footprints of the developments of that the world of celluloid had conquered throughout the years. A visual time travelling experience, these hits boasts of abundance of talent and heard work that need to be remembered and preserved as an example for future generations, Yet the sad fact is that many of the award winning past movies are fast dying away before our very eyes.

Senior Assistant Director at the Audio Visual Archives of the National Archives of Singapore Professor Phang Lai Tee was in Sri Lanka recently to speak at the Second Annual Lester James Peries Oration. Prior to the event Professor Tee unfurled her ideas on her experiences of archiving, challenges and the opportunities that Singapore has experienced on the subject, with the Sri Lankan audience.

The Audio Visual Archives in Singapore started in 1996 and it was under the recommendation of the advisory council of Culture and Arts headed by the then Deputy Prime Minister Cheong, who later became the first elected president.

“He recommended that there should be a National Heritage collection and it should be strengthened to cover sound and moving images. And by that it also covers films,” Professor Tee explained.

She also added that the National Archives of Singapore has a responsibility to collect and preserve audio visual archives that are created by government agencies, private organizations as well as individuals.

“The National Archives of Singapore has this broadened role that we look into audio visual materials besides traditional paper and file records. Increasingly even with the technological advancement we will still preserve films as an archival medium. We preserve a lot of records and films like microfilm. Film is a very special medium. It has this emotive appeal to the audience. It has a special quality sometimes no other medium can evoke,” she said.

In terms of Audio Visual Archives it does not just encompass film. There are also video and audio recordings such as those that are produced by broadcasting agencies. The National Archives of Singapore has a very close relationship with the broadcasting organizations in preserving audio visual records that are of national and historical significance.

“We get together in appraising and selecting those that are of long term value to Singapore. For example, news and current affairs programmes, documentaries, stories told in the past by story tellers. Today they have a special social significance in Singapore,” she said. The National Archives of Singapore partners the Asian Film Archives, a non governmental organization which has been set up to preserve Singapore and Asian movies and to promote awareness and education.

“The role of the National Archives is to help to do the storage and proper environmental control in the keeping of the films. The Asian Film Archives are helping to promote, conduct studies and to encourage scholarship in the study of films that is related to Singapore and Asia. Because the National Archives is limited in resources such a partnership is very good. Our strength is in preservation and in properly keeping and mitigating the costs for the future. Asian Film Archives are good at organizing programmes, workshops and discussions,” professor Tee noted. Commenting on young film makers, she said that today, when they create films, they create it as a social commentary on society. These films have their significance over time. In time to come these are like social commentaries on the society today.

“I am a chemist by profession and I learnt about archiving on the job and through my colleagues who have been working in this area for a long time. We do have technical colleagues who are more experienced in the TV programme industry.

They are sent for exchange programmes and training classes overseas to learn about film archiving and audio visual archiving. We organize workshops in Singapore on our own. In 2008 we organized ASEAN COCI workshop, where we invited specialists from different countries to talk about audio visual archiving; how to do it and the importance of archiving. In February 2012, we worked together with the French Embassy in organizing a workshop on digital preservation of audio visual archiving. So in terms of archiving, we have advanced in terms of our preservation approaches and technique,” she expressed.

Speaking on the prospect of an exchange programme between the National Archives of Sri Lanka and the National Archives of Singapore, she said that the two countries share many similar approaches in the way they handle archival material.

“As a chemist I first got into conservation in the museums. The museum and archives are under the same parallel organization called the National Heritage Board of Singapore. I have experience in broadcast management, archives services, electronic management and corporate services. I have been with the National Heritage Board for more than 15 years and the National Archives about that same period. For the last five years I have been in audio visual archiving,” she said.

Lanka’s first Tamil film

K S Sivakumaran

The local Tamil film industry is almost dead. It’s natural because of several obvious factors: limited audience, inability to match the technical advancement of films produced in Kodambaakam in Chennai (Kollywood), audience is attuned to and conditioned by the formulas of the Tamil films produced across the Palk Straits, regional dialects not understood by all the people and so on.

Dharmasena Pathiraja

Chandran Rutnam

Prasanna Vithanage

However, there is hope in the making of short films by many youngsters. Film directors belonging to the Sinhala community have to some extent tried to show slices of lifestyle of the northern people in their Sinhala language films.

The names of Dharmasena Pathiraja, Gamini Fonseka, Sunil Ariyaratne, Chandran Rutnam, Prasanna Vithanage, Bennet Rathnayake and recently Asoka Handagama come to mind.

Ironically the first Tamil film in Lanka was made by a person named Henry Ariyawansa. Some said that he was a Malayalee. I am not sure of his mother tongue or ethnicity.

The title of the film was ‘Samuthayam’ (meaning Society)). It was made in 16MM, but it was not distributed in the theatres but shown to a closed-circuit audience. However strictly-speaking the first Tamil film made in Lanka on 35MM was ‘Thottakkari’ (Estate Woman). It was directed by Krishnakumar who was also of Malayalam origin.

Here is a brief note on it remembering what I spoke in the ‘Arts Magazine’ programme in the English Service of then Radio Ceylon several decades ago.

When compared with average and immature Kollywood Tamil films of yesteryears, ‘Thoattakari’ indicated a promising attempt at film-making. Though not innovating in its experimentation, it had some positive aspect in spotlighting a social issue.

It was a black and white film shot in 16 MM. It brought to our notice that there were competent film technicians in our country too in the 1960s. But the film did not have an organic structure. It gave the impression that the cinematographer and the director were just playing with their tools of making a film.

Considering the inadequate facilities and guidance and the use of updated techniques, the short exercise could be considered a bold attempt at the time when Lankan Cinema as a whole was in its formative stages.

The glaring haphazardness in the making of ‘Thoatakari’ was that the producer and director did not understand the basics of a film and merely thought of capturing in camera a local Tamil stage drama. This was excusable because lot of people then did not understand that cinema is different from drama as a form of art. And conversely at that time the local Tamil drama too was substituting Tamil films of India.

‘Thoatakari’ was only partially rooted in a Lankan Tamil idiom. The estate people’s lives and their manner of speaking, customs etc were really a transportation of the South Indian milieu. So one could not call a truly Lankan film with its uniqueness.

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Films for social integration

Ruwini Jayawardana

Children of Heaven

Goodbye Lenin

Vidhu

The National Languages and Social Integration Ministry together with the National Film Corporation (NFC) and GIZ will launch a film festival to commemorate social integration week from July 16 to 22. Seven films will unspool on the NFC cinema hall at 5.30 pm each day.

‘Sarungalaya’, the yesteryear Sinhala hit will be screened on July 16 with Tamil subtitles. The film embodies the themes of caste issues and ethnic conflict. A Tamil public official is transferred to Colombo from Jaffna. He is liberal and opposed to nationalism. The film unfurls in flashbacks as he begins a romantic liaison with a young Sinhala woman. Meanwhile his sister begins a relationship with a young man from a low caste. She commits suicide because her family does not give their consent to the liaison. Struck by the tragedy, the Tamil official ventures to Colombo in search of greener pastures but gets caught in an ethnic conflict. The Tamil film ‘Ponmani’ will be screened on July 17 with Sinhala subtitles. The protagonist of the tale, Ponmani, is the youngest daughter in a family from the highest caste in the Tamil society. However her family has fallen on hard times and cannot even cover the debts they own for her eldest sister’s marriage. They are not in a state to find dowries for Ponmani and the second daughter of the family. When Ponmani takes matters into her own hands and elopes with a boy from the lower fisherman caste, the family honour is at stake. The film takes a feminist analysis of the society.

‘Goodbye Lenis’, the German movie which will be screening on July 18, is based on the backdrop of East Germany during 1989. Written by Benjamin Stello, the movie concerns the protest towards the regime and how a mother who awakens from a coma and finds herself about in a time when the world has changed a lot from the time that she knew.

Asoka Handagama’s ‘Vidhu’ revolves around the themes of education, children and socio-economic differences. It will be screened on July 19 with English subtitles. The popular Iranian film ‘Children of Heaven’ which embodies similar themes to ‘Vidhu’, will unfurl on July 20. French film ‘The Untouchables’ will be screening on July 21. It relates the friendship between two unlikely individuals: a wealthy disabled person and a youth of Senegalese descendant.

The film week comes to a close with the English movie ‘Invictus’ on July 22. This movie focuses on race, integration and unity. It is an aspiring story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team to help unite their country.

“These movies reflect that outward integration is not enough to unite all beings. We need to bond through our hearts,” said National Languages and Social Integration Ministry advisor Sankajaya Nanayakkara. He also said that this is one of the events which Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara has initiated for the social integration week.

Anagarika Dharmapala’s biography to take over the screen

Anagarika Dharmapala is an evergreen figure in Sri Lankan history. One of the founding contributors to the national revival, Dharmapala was also a pioneer in the revival of Buddhism in India after it had been virtually extinct there for several centuries. He was the first Buddhist in modern times to preach the Dharma in three continents: Asia, North America, and Europe. He was also a major reformer and revivalist of Sri Lankan Buddhism.

Now his biography will be made into a film by director Ranjan Prasanna. This will be Prasanna’s debut cinema venture as a director. He has many years of experience working as the assistant director for productions like ‘Julia’, ‘Ira Handa Yata’, ‘Ekamath Rka Rateka’ and ‘Sinhavalokanaya’.

His teledrama ‘Sihina Puraya’ is telecasting on Sirasa TV these days.

Tissa Athaley is the producer of Prasanna’s film. Sisira Hettiarachchi is the production manager. The script is by Saman Weeraman.

RJ

‘Kusa Paba’ breaks revenue records

Professor Sunil Ariyaratne’s film ‘Kusa Paba’ made a record-breaking revenue of Rs 202, 164, 021.17 in its screening period from January 26 to May 31, EAP Cinemas report. This is the highest revenue record in the 65-year local cinema history.

According EAP Cinemas, the number of viewers had been 1,587,299. ‘Kusa Paba’ is also the film with the highest one-day revenue record (Rs 5,651,402.69) and two-day revenue record (Rs 10,241,850.85). It is the first Sinhala film ubiquitously screened in 54 cinema halls.