A film on Sri Lankan saint dubbed into Tamil

Young filmmaker Sanjaya Nirmal’s ‘Joseph Vaz Piyathuma’ (Fr. Joseph Vaz), a cinematic creation based on the Apostle of Sri Lanka who revived the Catholic faith during the Dutch colonial reign has been dubbed in Tamil.

The Sinhala film which was produced in 2009 was dubbed into Tamil by the Catholic Centre for Social Communication and is now available in the DVD format. The film was made into Tamil so the Tamil community too would be able to learn about Fr. Joseph Vaz who was canonized by Pope Francis in Colombo last year.

St. Joseph Vaz arrived in Sri Lanka as a missionery in April 1687 at a time when Catholics were facing perse- cution from Dutch colonialists. After serving Sri Lankans specially during the time of small fox epidemic in Kandian Kingdom he died in 1711 in Kandy. The film was an idea of Fr. Alex Dassanayake former vicepostulator of the National Joseph Vaz Secretariat who together with Sanjaya Nirmal made the film.

Sanjaya the filmmaker was grateful to many artistes and crew who took part in the film. He said even though it was a film about a Christian missionary and early stages of the church in Sri Lanka, many artistes from other religions too helped it. From the main role of St Joseph Vaz played by Saranga Dissasekara there were many Buddhist actors and actresses who took part in the film.

Among the others in the cast are Sarath Kotelawala, Nita Fernando, Rex Kodippili and Gihan.

The film in both Sinhala and Tamil versions is now available in DVD format.