TV Times

TV Times

Malaka's movie makes its mark in New York
By Susitha R. Fernando
Student filmmaker Malaka Devapriya's short film ‘Life Circle’ has been selected for the Chimera 25th Anniversary Digital Video Student Film Contest, in New York.

Young Malaka's film 'Life Circle', which narrates the destiny of a woman whose life is centred on a sewing machine was selected along with 'All But One' by Kevin Duggin, 'Casket Climber Insect God' by Brian Lonano, 'CU' by Adam Patch, 'Dystychiphobia' by Ian Fleischmann, 'Futility' by Mathew Rudenberg, 'Goldfish' by D. Walter Miller, 'La Secuencia Dietrich' by Ruben Fernandez, 'Last Rites' by Robert Muraskin, 'Lost Our Senses' by Joe Ornelas, 'Mulligan' by Josiah Larson, "My Girlfriend's on Drugs' by Pearl Wible, 'Stranger' by Montana Casey, and 'What Time Is It?' by Pete Herron.

The final films were selected from 86 entries including comedies, dramas, documentaries, thrillers, music videos, experimental short films and other genres. All the submissions were of 5 minutes duration or less.
‘We were truly amazed at the number and the quality of the entries. I want to offer special congratulations to the finalists,’ said Kim E. Welch, Director of film festival. (studentfilmmakers.com).

"The festival's primary goal is to encourage and support new and independent film and video makers. The resource and creative community for students, professionals, and educators in the film industry features moderated forums, industry news, contests, and information about new software and hardware," added the organisers.

Making of 'Life Circle'
Narrating the making of the film in a day- Malaka, still a student at the Journalism Unit of the University of Colombo said, ‘once the story line was finalised and an actress and production team were found we conducted a discussion on October 1, 2001 and decided on October 14 for the shooting’.
Since the script demanded a lot of clothes we decided to make the film in Maharagama, the town which is famous for textiles and the location was a friend's house in Maharagama.

On October 13 we collected the props needed for the film (clothes, sewing machine etc) and at 3.00 pm started constructing the set and the work went on till late night.

On the following day early in the morning we started work. At 7.30 am, the vehicle carrying the lights and camera arrived at the location and by 8.30 pm we set up lights. The rest was the most important work filming of 'Life Circle', the first take at 9.00 am and second take. The second phase of shooting started at 3.00 pm. And by 6.00 pm it too was completed.

After the make up changes the third phase was over by 10.00 pm. And we had made 'Life Circle' our masterpiece, said Malaka, the budding filmmaker.
Reminiscing on the challenges and memories, the young director says "the greatest challenge was the finance. The clothes needed for the film was not available and traders were reluctant to lend us clothes free of charge. Eventually after lengthy explanations that we started doing a film about their lives with one understanding trader willing to help us. However we had to walk the length and breadth of Maharagama looking for clothes.

‘Next challenge was finding an old sewing machine. The search was hard as old sewing machines were outdated and no more in use. It was after a thorough search that a grandmother of one of my friends kindly agreed to lend us her sewing machine for the shoot. However she had little trust in us and she herself was at the location to watch the shoot and specially to ensure that no damage was done to her precious machine,’ Malaka said with a smile on his face.

‘Most of us were amateurs and therefore had little experience in handling the management of a film (even though this was a short film). This led us to make mistakes when it came to management’.

"One such mistake was when I left the location in order to buy a DV Cam cassette advising the crew to buy some black thread and keep it for the next shoot. However as black thread was not available there they had bought some bright yellow thread. But together with the thread they had bought black paint to blacken the thread. After painstaking painting the yellow thread we used it.
‘Unfortunately the black paint ran onto the borrowed cloth from the traders and subsequently we had to pay the traders for their cloth,’ said the young director.

"Life Circle" has been selected as an entry at the official contest program of the 8th Olympia International Film Festival for Children & Young People, Athens, Greece this week.

The film was earlier selected for the world reputed International Student Film Festival, Tel Aviv, Israel -June 2004 and Cinestud International Film Festival, Amsterdam, Netherlands on May 9 to 17 this year.
More information about the festival and Malaka's film 'Life Circle' is available on http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/chimeralighting/article_829.shtml.

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