From Rekava to Cannes: Sri Lankan cinema

About From Rekava to Cannes: Sri Lankan cinema

By the ULTIMATE Sri Lanka Editorial Team

Site Editor: Tara de la Motte

Sinhala cinema found its own voice in 1956, when Lester James Peries made Rekava, shot on location in a village rather than in a studio. Since then, Sri Lankan directors have won prizes at the world’s great festivals.

Lester James Peries

Lester James Peries (1919–2018) is the father of Sri Lankan art cinema. Rekava (1956) was shown at Cannes, and Gamperaliya (1963), based on Martin Wickramasinghe’s novel about a changing village family, won the Golden Peacock at the International Film Festival of India in 1965.

The realists

In the 1970s, Dharmasena Pathiraja was a pioneer of a new realist cinema, telling stories of ordinary lives in towns and villages.

Rekava took the camera out of the studio and into the village, and Sri Lankan cinema was never the same again.

Festival winners

Prasanna Vithanage is one of the most acclaimed directors of recent decades, with films shown at major international festivals. Vimukthi Jayasundara won the Caméra d’Or for the best first feature at Cannes in 2005 with The Forsaken Land (Sulanga Enu Pinisa).

The stars

Malani Fonseka, often called the queen of Sinhala cinema, has starred in a long line of films since the late 1960s, and Gamini Fonseka was one of the great leading men of Sinhala cinema from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Watching films

Look for screenings at film festivals and cultural centres in Colombo, and ask for Sri Lankan classics with subtitles before your trip.

Our advice: watch Rekava or Gamperaliya before you travel; then, in the south, visit the Martin Wickramasinghe museum at Koggala, home of the writer whose novel became the film.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with From Rekava to Cannes: Sri Lankan cinema before you go.