Prasanna’s ‘28’ brings Lanka into limelight
Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk announcing nominees for the 8th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA), with 36 films from 21 Asia Pacific countries and areas vying for the region’s highest accolade in films.
Adding another international acclaim to his latest film, filmmaker Prasanna Jayakody’s ‘28’ has been nominated for two main awards at the Asia Pacific Screen Award (APSA), Australia The film has been nominated for Best Screenplay (Prasanna Jayakody) and Best performance by an actor (Mahendra Perera) awards at the 8th APSA held from November 29 to December 14.
Prasanna’s film has been competing with cinema giants like Germany, Russia, Iran, Japan, China Australia, Korea and the Philippines. The 2014 Asia Pacific Screen Awards ceremony will be held in Brisbane’s historic City Hall on Thursday December 11 at a glittering event, with nominees and industry luminaries in attendance.
Prasanna Jayakody
Professor Hong-Joon Kim, Chair of the International Nominations Council said of the 2014 nominations: “2014 has seen another competitive year of amazing films from the Asia Pacific region.”
Winners in the feature film categories will be determined by the 2014 APSA International Jury, headed by the internationally acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (The Past, A Separation).
In February the film won the NETPAC Award (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) at the 43rd Rotterdam International Film Festival.The NETPAC Jury which selected Prasanna’s film as the best Asian film noted ‘28’ as “a well-measured and crafted film that emotionally engages the audience through poetic storytelling of a critical subject.”
Written and directed by Prasanna, the film stars Mahendra Perera, Rukmal Nirosh, Sarath Kothalawela and Semini Iddamalgoda in the stellar cast. Presented in a form of a road movie, ‘28’ narrates how three men transport the body of a woman (in a vehicle numbered 28-Sri), who had been raped and murdered, in an old van. One of the men will find out that the woman is his estranged wife.
Cinematography is by Chandana Jayasinghe, Rangana Singharage the editor, Nishantha Padmakumara the production designer while the musical score is by Deshaka Bamunumulla, ‘28-Sri’ is produced by Rasitha Jinasena for SKY Entertainers (Pvt) Ltd. Prasanna’s two earlier directions ‘Sankara’ (2007) and ‘Karma’ (2011) were screened at the IFFR in the respective years.
