Prasanna’s ‘With You, Without You’ bags main Presidential awards

Prasanna Vithanage’s ‘Oba Nethuwa Oba Ekka’ (With You, Without You) won the main awards including the Best Director, Best Actor and Actress at the 8th Presidential cinema Awards held recently.

Indian actress Anjali Patil and theatre veteran Shyam Fernando who played the lead roles in Vithanage’s film won the Best Actress and the Best Actor awards respectively for their out- standing performances in Prasanna Vithanage’s film.

Competing with 24 films screened in the year 2015 Vithanage’s film won the awards for the Best Film (Lasantha Navarathna and Mohammed Adamally), Special Jury Award for Best Sound Designer (Thapas Nayak), Best Script Writer (Vithanage), Best Music Direction (Lakshman Joseph De Sarem) and Best Editor (Sreekar Prasad).

‘Ho gana Pokuna’ won nine awards while ‘Maharaja Gemunu’ won the award for the film that got the highest response from the viewers in 2015.

Started by the late President J.R. Jayawardena in 1979, Presidential Cinema Awards was organised this year after eight years of silence.

Organised to recognise the talents in Sri Lankan cinema, this year six Golden Lion (Swarna Singha) awards were given to Anoja Weerasinghe, Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, Donald Karunaratne, Nanda Malini, Wasantha Obeysekera and Swarna Mallawarachchi and nine Pioneer (Purogamee) awards were given to Arthur U Amarasena, Tissa Liyanasuriya, Derrik Fernando, Professor Sunil Ariyaratne, A.D. Ranjith Kumara, Chandra Kaluarachchi, K.P. Balasinghe, Sunil Mihindukula and Gamini Weragama for their pioneering service rendered to Sri Lankan cinema.