Award winning teleplay director Sudath Rohana started his latest directorial venture ‘Girikula’ based on the award winning novel written by Shanthi Dissanayake under the same title.
The direction is indeed an uphill task for Sudath who has mastered creating dramas based on renowned literary works for the small screen at a time, television broadcast is filled with stereotyped and low quality soap operas.
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| Sarath Dharma, Somaweera Senanayake and producer Faheem Mawjude |
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A number of veteran artistes like script writer Somaweera Senanayake and Sathischandra Edirisinghe who attended the Muhurath ceremony noted Sudath’s attempt to swim against the current and create quality and artistic teledramas for the Sri Lankan audience.
Sudath is engaged in a difficult task as he is going against the current trend of dishing out so called teledramas without any art, the expert script writer, Somaweera Senanayake said.
Starting with an one-episodic play based on a short story in 1990, in Sudath’s hand a number of well-known literary works became popular teledramas. They included Sarath Wijesuriya’s ‘Avindu Adhura’ in 1993, Piyasena Kahandagamage’s ‘Wanawadule Wasanthaya’ in 1995, Jayasena Jayakody’s controversial novel ‘Bedde Gedara’ in 1998, Sarath Dharmasena’s ‘Katu Imbula’ in 2005 and Sri Lanka’s renowned writer Martin Wickremasinghe’s ‘Karuwala Gedara’ in 2008.
“My main aim of making teledramas based on literary works is to encourage the reading of these great stories as novel or short stories. It will help us to minimize the declining reading habit in our society,” Sudath said.
‘Girikula’ is the newest book written by Shanthi Dissanayake based on which the teledrama is to be made. Dissanayake who had won a number of awards and accolades including the D. R. Wijewardena award in 1998 has a number of novels which were converted to the audio visual medium as teledramas and films.
‘Girikula’ set around the lives of a colony is a first hand experience for Dissanayake who was brought up in a similar surrounding off Anuradhaputa. “It is a great honour to see that characters I created in my novels are being recreated in the audio-visual medium. I never wrote imagining that they would ever get in to the small screen,” Dissanayake said in a humble tone. The screenplay for ‘Girikula’ is done by filmmaker and teledrama director Sarath Dharmasiri.
The teleplay is produced by Faheem Mawjude who was keen to do a teleplay with Sudath. “I have read ‘Girikula’ and I wanted to convert it to a teledrama oneday,” Mawjude said.
The cast is played by Kanchana Mendis, Janak Premalal, Wasanthi Chathurani, Nilmini Tennakone, Niroshan Wijesinghe, Gangu Roshana, Saman Hemaratne, Hemasiri Liyanage, Anula Karunatillake, Susantha Chandramali, Uddika Premaratne, Seetha Kumari, Richard Manamudali, Priyankara Ratnayake, Chinthaka Kulatunga, Subuddhika Lakmali, Lal Kularatne, Sanath Wimalasiri, Gamini Hettiarachchi, Saranapala Jayasuriya, Prasannajith Abeysuirya, T. B. Ekanayake, Kaushalya Samarasinghe, Madhshan Hathlahwatta and many more. |
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