Mark Bartholomeusz no more

Well known documentary film director, journalist, broadcaster and author of The Boomerang Leslie Mark Bartholomeusz (89), passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by his family on March 24.

Leslie Mark Bartholomeusz, received his higher education at the University of Western Australia. He began his professional career as a script writer/producer for the Sri Lankan Broadcasting Corporation/Station and later focused on documentary film direction and creative writing.

He spent most of his professional life in Sri Lanka as a radio feature producer and documentary film writer/director. The latter profession took him to remote parts of Sri Lanka/Africa and to some of the bigger cities of Europe and the USA in the course of his duties.

He scripted and directed his first documentary film about 40 years ago on the Vanishing Veddahs. The film was accepted for non-theatrical distribution by Arthur Rank in London and by McGraw Hill in New York. It was later aired in the UK, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Australia (ABC), Canada and the USA.

He retired as a documentary film director in 1982 after five years spent in Zambia and Africa making documentary films for its government on the humanistic philosophy of President Kaunda and one of its largest mining companies.

His first paperback Boomerang was published by Carlton Press New York in 1983. The novel Boomerang was written with a Sri Lankan background in the all too rare intervals between his work in Zambia. He has written many short stories which appeared in French, Flemish, Canadian, Australian and Sri Lankan magazines/newspapers and in anthologies of popular writers such as Jack London, Tennessee Williams, H.G. Wells, Lord Lytton and Pearl Buck. These anthologies were published in the USA and the UK in 1968 and 1970. His first book of short stories was published in Sri Lanka in 1971.

In 1989, Bartholomeusz migrated to Australia with his family after the loss of his daughter late Ramani Bartholomeusz.

Mark leaves his wife Kamala, children Mark, Marie, Dileene and Renee. His eldest daughter Ramani Bartholomeusz television/film actress passed away in 1987).

A private service and cremation will be held on Thursday, March 28, at 10:30 am at the Good Shepherd Church Wheelers Hill.