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Monara
Kirilli: Story of love, separation
This
20 episode teledrama is being screened every Thursday at 7.30 pm
on ITN channel. 'Monara Kirilli'
is the story of a young girl born to an affluent family who gets
interested in social service beginning to help the poor and displaced. 'Lehana' is
twenty two years old and her late father was a Supreme Court judge.
Lehana's mother 'Elga' who runs a successful club for rich people
wants her daughter to get married to a son of a powerful businessman
in Colombo. But Lehana's
interests are miles away from her mother's. Having joined a team
of researchers from an international institute she collects data
of displaced war victims in the North and East of Sri Lanka. The
main aim of this team is to educate the world about the people who
have been affected by the war. Captain Seneviratne,
an unmarried Army Officer helps this team in this research in the
war ravaged areas. While working
on this mission one day the team finds itself under attack by the
terrorists. Seneviratne along with others in his battalion manages
to protect them. During this attack Lehana and Captain Seneviratne
get separated from the rest of the company who manage to return
to camp. The couple
had to spend the night in a half destroyed house in the forest.
They falls in love with each other and spend the night together.
On the following
day Captain Seneviratne returns to his camp after sending the girl
to her residence. Their affair continues. But Lehana's mother who
comes to know about this gets infuriated. She hides the letters
sent by Captain Seneviratne to her daughter who was pregnant. Time
passes and Lehana gives birth to a boy child and Elga plans to separate
the child from the mother. Pretending that the child had died at
birth she hands over the child to a beggar to be brought up. Lehana who
suffers a double tragedy; first her lover and the child, leaves
the country. Meanwhile Captain Seneviratne who becomes the victim
of a land mine explosion during an operation loses one of his legs
and is admitted to hospital for treatment. After a time
Lehana returns to the country and continues as a social worker attached
to the same foreign team. This time she
comes to do a research on the street children and destiny makes
her to meet her own child, now a son of a beggar. However Lehana
who did not know the real identity of this child gets close to him.
But one day having fallen seriously ill the child is admitted to
hospital and doctors find that the child was undergoing serious
kidney failure. Lehana who comes to help the child promises to provide
necessary money to cure the child whose kidney had to be transplanted.
For this the kidney of the beggar does not match and Lehana once
again volunteers to sacrifice her kidney to him. Lehana, child and
beggar woman fly to India for the operation and meanwhile Captain
Seneviratne gets to know that Lehana had given birth to a child.
Threatening Lehana's mother Captain Seneviratne finds the child.
Without revealing his real identity he starts to help the child.
But 'Monara
Kirilli' takes a dramatic turn at this stage. Would the lovers get
united after the long separation? Would Captain reveal the real
identity about the child to Lehana and the beggar? All these will
find answers in the last episode of 'Monara Kirilli'. The cast in
the tele film are Dilani Abeywardena, Roshan Pilapitiya, Indrajith
Navinna, Anjela Seneviratne, G. R. Perera, Gnananga Gunawardena
and Sandeepa Sewmini. In the technical crew are Jayadewa Mendis as cameraman, Ranjith Silva as art director and Tharupathi Munasinghe directs the music. 'Aswesuma'
to help cancer patients The film revolving
around an elderly man who regrets certain events in his past life
and it displays his struggle to relieve the bottled up feelings
which had disturbed him throughout his life. Opening with the funeral
the elderly Guneris' wife the film follows the revelation of his
past which is filled with a number of tragic events including a
triple murder he had committed 52 years ago. "Aswesuma"
which won several international awards was the opening film of Asian
Film Festival where veteran Sri Lankan film maker Dr. Lester James
Peiris was honoured with the Asian Film Culture Award given to a
distinguished director from Asia. Dr. Peiris' latest film "Wekande
Walawwe" was selected to wind up this festival which is from
August 3 to 12. Meanwhile "Aswesuma" was selected for the Competitive section of the 8th 'Pyongyang International Film Festival' (IFF) in Korea scheduled to be held from September 3 to 12 and will be screened at '17th Alexandria IFF' at Cairo from September 5 to 12 and 'Fukuoka IFF' in Japan from September 13 to 23 to which Benette Ratnayake and the principal actor Jackson Anthony have been invited.
Sakva
Lihiniyo' on Rupavahini Scripted by Prasannajith Abeysuriya the mini play is based on a story written by Janaka Ratnayake. 'Sakvalihiniyo' is produced by Remensi Fernando and Priya Ranasinghe. Vithanage
pleads for racial unity "Purahanda
Kaluwara" (Death on the Full Moon Day) like his latest work
which deals with the war won the Grand Prix at the Amiens Film Festival
and became a success despite the government ban imposed on it. For Ira Madiyama
the director chooses three people. a man, a woman and a child. The three characters
are Arfath, an 11 year old Muslim boy from Talaimannar, struggles
to keep his companion and friend, a dog while his family is forced
out of its home by the LTTE rebels. Chamari, a young woman resident
in Colombo looks for her pilot husband said to be missing in action.
The third is
a young soldier, Duminda walks into a brothel in the Sacred City
of Anuradhapura, only to find his sister among the sex workers there.
The director
says that almost all the players in 'Ira Madiyama' are those with
little or no prior experience in acting. Hassan and
Arfath, are played by refugees from Kalpitiya who have been chased
away from Mannar due to the war. "I'm casting non-professionals
and real life actors to ensure total authenticity in their performances"
Mr. Vithanage says. Prior to selecting the cast the director had
conducted a workshop on acting for 84 inexperienced real life actors
and actresses. The plot for
'Ira Mediyama' began to take shape three years ago. The initial
idea came to this director with a story related by one of his close
friends about a young Muslim boy evicted from Jaffna by LTTE and
still looking for his dog. This followed when this same friend one
year later told him about a young soldier who was returning home
via the Sacred City of Anuradhapura who finds his sister in a brothel
he and his friend visit. The last was a young wife who had come
to inquire about her husband who is missing in action. She believes
he is still alive. Having written
the script Prasanna took it to several potential producers until
it was accepted by Soma Edirisinghe for EAP films. With 'Ira Madiyama'
Soma Edirisinghe's production figure reaches twenty two films. Along with the film a novel feature is introduced to Sri Lankan cinema; a web site titled 'www.iramadiyama.com'. This helps to track the progress made by the film from the very first day of shooting right through the post production. At the muhurath ceremony the film maker Prasanna Vithanage said "I have a dream that all the people of different nationalities must come together". 'Ira Madiyama' will be dubbed in Tamil. |
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Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
This special
screening organised by the Lions Club of Pelawatte will include
a special felicitation ceremony for Mr. Ratnayake. The proceeds
of the show on August 31 at 6.30 will be donated to a fund to help
cancer patients. 
