4K restored ‘Nidhanaya’ at National Archives
View(s):For the first time in Sri Lanka, the 4K restored version of ‘Nidhanaya’ (1973) of filmmaker Lester James Peries was screened on April 7, on the opening day of ‘Archiving the Image: From Conservation to the Screen’ workshop.
‘Archiving the Image: From Conservation to the Screen’ was a three day workshop held at the National Archives from April 7 to 9, 2025 on film programming and photography and film conservation.
‘Nidhanaya’ was restored in 2013 by Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with ‘The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project’, Lester James and Sumitra Peries and was premiered at the Venice International Film Festival 2013.
This screening with English subtitles for the first time in Sri Lanka of the restored film is made possible by The Film Foundation and Cineteca di Bologna, with special thanks to the Dr Lester James Peries and Sumitra Peries Foundation and the Film Heritage Foundation of India.
‘Nidhanaya’ (The Treasure) is a Sinhala language black and white film based on a dark tale by G.B. Senanayake and is considered a milestone film, albeit it is atypical of Lester James Peries’s customary family dramas. The story revolves around a psychotic killer yet is an underlying serious political study on the degradation of a class of society. In 1972 the film won the Silver Lion of St. Mark at the 33rd Venice International Film Festival and was selected as one of the outstanding films of the year, receiving a Diploma at the London Film Festival. It was also voted as the best film of the first 50 years of Sri Lankan cinema.
This screening on 7th April was especially significant as the birthday of the late Dr. Lester James Peries was on 5 April, also the day the National Film, Television and Sound Archives was opened by him at the Sri Lanka National Archives in 2014.
This screening of the restored Nidhanaya and other screenings and the Workshop on ‘Film Programming and Photograph & Film Conservation’, held in collaboration with the Embassy of France in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the Embassy of France in India, the Film Heritage Foundation of India, the Sri Lanka National Archives and the National Film Corporation under the France-India-Sri Lanka Cine Heritage (FISCH) programme.
The other restored films screened at the festival were ‘Kummatty’(1979)- Malayalam film (English subtitles) and French movie ‘The Cemetery of Cinema’(2023) with English subtitles.
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