Hasantha win kudos in Turkey with cinematic tale of Roald Dahl’s short story
Filmmaker receiving the award from Prof. Dr. Yusuf Adiguzal, the Dean of the Communication Faculty of Sakarya University the
Film ‘Mutton’ made based on short story ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ wins the Best Foreign Film award at the Sakarya International Short Film Festival in Turkey
Young filmmaker Hasantha Prabhoothi Dissanayake’s short film ‘Mutton’ made based on Roald Dahl’s short story ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ won the Best Foreign Film award at the Sakarya International Short Film Festival in Turkey last week. The film has been selected out of nearly 7000 films from 187 countries around the world. The film was the only representation from South Asia. ‘Mutten’ is Hashantha’s ninth short film direction.
Undergraduate from the University of Kelanaiya, the film was the final year project for Hashantha’s special degree on Film and Television.
‘Mutton’ also won the Best Student Film award at the Druk International Film Festival in Bhutan. The film also won the Outstanding Achievement award for cinematographer Chinthaka Bandara. Among the other foreign film festivals, it has been selected for the final round of Gimpo International Youth Film Festival in South Korea and award ceremony is to be held in November. In addition it has been selected for the final round of the International Moving Film Festival in Iran. The festival is also in the competition section of nearly 10 international film festivals.
Scripted and directed by Dissanayake the story revolves around Sherina Samson an eight months pregnant woman. The mother-to-be comes to know about and extramarital affair of her husband. When she questions this, the husband gets angry avoid answering her. Thus Sherina prepares dinner for the two and leaves the house. On the way, she meets with a minor accident and she reports this to the police. When she returns home, to her shock she finds her husband is dead and she once again calls the police.
When the police arrives at the house, it is revealed the death is a murder and the police starts looking for the gun that killed her husband. Will they ever be able to find the killer?
Hasantha with Sri Lankan Ambassador in Turkey Mohamed Rizvi Hassen and the Embassy Secretary Navaratnam Gajithra
Director of photography of ‘Mutten’ is Chinthaka Dumith Bandara while editor is Anestis Countidis and music director is Miyuru Sangeeth
The Sakarya International Short Film festival that was held for the seventh time was organized within the body of Sakarya University Communication Faculty, in cooperation with Sakarya Metropolitan Municipality and with the contributions of the TR Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Turkey.
The festival was originally started in 2015 under the title Golden Pumpkin but in 2020 it was changed after the name of the city Sakarya. The festival gives an opportunity for university students actively take part in an international film festival and also to work with important names in the industry. The festival also brings together students who are interested in cinema in Turkey and world over and the festival aims to increase students’ interest in cinema by awarding student films. Within the scope of the festival, workshops are held with many academicians, producers and directors, and students who are interested in making movies are given opportunities to shoot their films.
“There are many feature length films, short films and teleplays made based on Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter short story but I changed the story line different to all those stories. I present the story line differently,” Hasantha said about his 12-minute short film.
“My supervisor was Prabath Agampody who made ‘Viya Siduara’ the first feature length film production made as a university project,” Hasantha who assisted his senior lecturer in that film said.
Student from Richmand College, Galle, Hasantha did his maiden movie at the age of 19 just after he left the school. He won his first award Focus on Ability short film festival at Sydney in Australia in 2016. There he won the International People’s choice award.
After his Advanced Level examination, Hasantha followed a course on teledrama direction conducted by Telemakers Guild or Tele Nirmanakaruwange Sansadaya and there he he was guided by welknown teledrama director Sudath Rohana who also present Chairman of Independent Television Network (ITN). Later he worked under Sudath in number of his productions. “Mr. Sudath Rohana helped me a lot in this journey and I am grateful for his guidance,” Hasantha said.
