‘Gaadi’ among best 100 Asian films in 2019
Film is scheduled to be released early this year
Prasanna Vithanage’s newest film ‘Gaadi’ (Children of the Sun) is placed among the 100 ‘not to be missed films’ from Asia in the year 2019. The 100 films with exceptional cinematic standards have been selected by the Asian Film Festival, an Argentinean website dedicated exclusively to Asia festivals. Established in April 2016, Asian Film Festivals (AFF) is the first website dedicated exclusively to Asian film festivals and the main objective is to promote and publish information about festivals taking place in Asian countries and Australia and New Zealand. Over the last three years the AFF has managed to index over 200 events across Asia.
“Each year after covering over 150 Asian festivals we select our favourite movies. As usual we try to be fair and select films from different genres,” says Sebastián Nadilo, the head of the AFF.
‘Gaadi’ is one of the first movies to be screened in the new year and is to be released on CEL circuit cinemas.
The film had its world premiere at Asia’s renowned Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) in South Korea, in last October. It was screened among 300 films, representing 85 countries which will be screened at BIFF during this festival.
The film will debut the talented Dinara Punchihewa as the heroine starring besides the equally talented Sajitha Anuththara.
The film has a stellar cast comprising Ravindra Randeniya, Shyam Fernando, Irangani Serasinghe, Kalana Gunasekara, Damayanthi Fonseka, Mohamed Adamaly, Ananda Kumara Unnahe, Nethali
Nanayakkara, Mervyn Croon, Thusitha Laknath, Rangabuddhaand Dishni Rajapaksa.
GAADI is a period drama based on a series of events unfolded in the early 19th century, during the last days of the Kandyan Kingdom. Slated to be Prasanna’s first work of history and titled as a “historical road film”, ‘Gaadi’ is set in the Kandy of 1814 during the dark days of a rebellion by Sinhala nobles against the Tamil king. The film describes on a law that required women whose husbands were missing to walk to a river and make one of the two choices on offer. One, they could jump into the water in a sacrificial ritual. Two, they could marry one of the scavengers waiting across the river.’
‘Gaadi’ revolves around a young girl, who decides to wed a low caste young man instead of giving up her life and the films is to narrate her journey to save her life and dignity.
Bridging the huge Bollywood cinema and Sri Lankan cinema ‘ Gaadi’ is co-produced by Mumbai based Jar Pictures, an Indian motion picture production company which is known for its independent filmmaking. The company earlier produced ‘Liar’s Dice’, India’s official Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film for the 87th Academy Awards.
‘Film Island’, H.D. Premasiri and Prasanna Vithanage Productions are the local producers of ‘Gaadi’.
Behind this project are the Indian film industry stalwarts such as Rajeev Ravi who will join the team as the cinematographer, A. Sreekar Prasad as the editor and Tapas Nayak as the sound designer, enhancing the core team, the statement noted.