“There is nepotism and favouritism in local TV award festivals”
Ranga, son of renowned playwright and filmmaker Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, joined cinema and the theatre as a child actor. He played in number of his father’s directions while being a student of Kalutara Maha Vidyalaya, St John’s Girls College, Panadura and D. S. Senanayake College Colombo. Continuing footsteps of his father Ranga, worked as a stage manager in a number of his father’s plays and later played in films like ‘Chitty’ and Sudath Mahadivulwewa’s telefilms ‘Dande lu Gini’. He played the main role in Sunil Chandrasiri’s play ‘Gini Dandu Hewana’ made based on Seán O’Casey’s play ‘The Shadow of a Gunman’.
Started television career as a News Coordinator at the TNL television in 1995, Ranga later joined Salacine Television Institute which was under the government. In 1997 he joined Teledrama Unit of the SLRC as a producer. Ranga directed ‘Bhawanthara’, 40-episode teleserial, a production which was both popular and artistically rich. In addition to producing large number of documentary and docudrama Ranga also has directed around 50 oneepisode poya dramas ‘Sitha Niwana Katha’.
“I first came to know about this international film festival from discarded papers found from a dustbin at the SLRC. Having gone through the festival details, I applied with one of my documentaries featuring former LTTE cadre. It was titled “Life without love, love without life’”, Ranga said describing his discovery of the DetectiveFEST in Russia.
Ranga applied for the festival together with his Rupavahini colleagues Athula Peiris, and Shiran Ratnayake in 2018. Along with Ranga Athula Pieris’ “Brethren” and Shiran Rathnayake’s “Have a Safe Journey” were nominated for the final round of the XX DetectiveFEST International Film Festival. The nominations were out of 600 submission from 71 countries. There Athula Peiris won the first place in ‘humanity’ category. Ranga won the Diploma award in ‘against terrorism’ category while Shiran Ratnayake won the Diploma award in the ‘Road safety’ category.
“In 2018 we got some financial support from the President’s office. But unfortunately we couldn’t get any support this year and finally Nishadi and I went on our own with our personal money and salaries which we collected early,” Ranga said unravelling the arduous journey that award winning artistes who bring glory to the country, have to be followed.
“It was good that we went to Russia as the Festival organisers were planning to stop accepting productions in future in case if anyone of us failed to represent the country this year,” the filmmaker said.
“The festival was against terrorism and we went to Russia on the day after the terrible Easter attack on April 21. So there was lot of attention for us and our country which had become the latest target of international terrorism,” Ranga described the importance of Sri Lankan being represented in Russia.
The award wining audio-visual director also revealed the bitter truth about Sri Lanka’s television award ceremonies and the selections and awards they offer.
“Some of these dramas and documentaries we send for the television festivals in Sri Lanka but unfortunately they even didn’t get nominations. We see that how much these television festivals are infected with favouritism and nepotism,”.
“This shows the appalling situation of art and cinema in our country. It is no wonder that many vices like so many murders, fights and rapes are taking on daily basis. When there is no proper art, the country leads to a desperate situation like this,”.