A Tele solution for humanelephant conflict
The pre-production of ‘Kunchanadha’, a new teleplay revolving around the humanelephant conflict in Sri Lanka is completed and it is to be shot soon. Areas in and around Rambukkana and Galgamuwa, where human-elephant issues are taking place have been selected as main locations for the drama.
Scripted by Aruna Premaratne and directed by award winning teledrama director and filmmaker Christy Shelton Fernando, the teledrama is produced by Consultant physician Dr. Lakshman Makandura.
This is the first attempt that the human-elephant conflict is featured in an audio-visual work of art. The teledrama is to convey that just as the human, elephants too have the right to live and what is more important is to understand the importance of coexistence.
“In the United States, the elephants can only be seen at zoos and even in most of the European countries the situation is the same,” said Dr. Makandura who lives in the US but is keen about Sri Lankan art, culture and the environment.
‘Fortunately Sri Lanka, though small in size we can see this majestic animals in abundance. It is a treasure and we have the responsibility to protect them for the future’ Dr. Makandura, an Internal Medicine Specialist at West Covina, in California said.
Having heard a large number of news reports about the deaths of innocent villagers and elephants due to human-elephant conflict, Dr. Makandura joined the tele-production.
The teleplay features Sriyani Amerasena, Buddhadasa Vithanarachchi, Roshan Pilapitiaya, Awanthi Aponsu, Anuradha Edirisinghe, Chathura Rajapaksa and few other veteran stars in the cast.
The camera direction of ‘Kunchanadha’ is by Janaka
Yahampath, art director is Deepthi Mangalasoma, makeup is by Shashindra Thunpaththu, assistant director is Nalin Dharmasiri, production manager is Somadasa Maldeniya and production coordinator is Sriyani Amerasena.
Director Christy Shelton Fernando recently won a number of awards for his film direction ‘Yaathrya’. With over three decades in cinema and teledrama industries playing multiple roles such as filmmaker, TV director, script writer, dramatist and writer, Christy entered the world of cinema in 1981 as the co-script writer and assistant director to the late award winning filmmaker Vasantha Obeysekara in his film ‘Dadayama’ or ‘The Hunt’.
He has worked as an assistant director to veterans such as Titus Thotawatte, H.D. Premarathna, Ananda Abeynayaka. A graduate in Mass communication and journalism from the Sri Jayawardanapura University, Christy, has made four feature films, 30 serialised TV dramas, 11 one-act tele dramas, semifeature films, film documentaries, TV documentaries, and many commercial advertisements. A number of his Films, TV dramas and documentaries have won awards at several award festivals locally and internationally.