Celluloid dreams, East and West

Nalaka Gunawardene and Vindana Ariyawansa

Dr Lester James Peries, the doyen of Sri Lankan cinema and a world acclaimed Asian film maker, celebrates his 92nd birthday on April 5, 2011. An active film maker since 1949, he has made a total of 19 feature films, 10 documentaries and short films in a career spanning six decades.

Many film critics and historians of the cinema agree that Lester is one of the top three film makers to have emerged from Asia, the other two being Akira Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray. He has won numerous awards and been honoured and felicitated by film festivals and film critics all over the world. Two universities have conferred honorary doctorates on him for outstanding contributions to the cinema.

In today's Wiz Quiz, we look at the early years of Lester James Peries as he experimented with the film medium and explored the range of opportunities with documentaries and short films. We then move on to other topics - including paying tribute actress Elizabeth Taylor.

1. Young Lester James Peries started his working life as a journalist. After freelancing for newspapers and radio in Sri Lanka, he moved to London where he lived from 1947 to 1952 and worked for a leading Lankan newspaper. Initially he was a columnist (writing a weekly column titled 'Letter on the Arts from London') and then worked as a full time reporter and feature writer, covering a range of subjects. What was this newspaper, which is no longer in publication?

2. Lester's interest in the film medium was nurtured during the years he spent in London. In 1949, he collaborated with another Lankan with similar interests, Hereword Jansz, to make a short film - their first. Lester scripted and directed, while Hereword did the cinematography with limited camera equipment. This maiden effort, a 16 mm film in black and white lasting 12 minutes, won the Mini Cinema Cup in UK for 'displaying the best technical proficiency'. What was the film's title?

3. It was the leading English documentary film maker Ralph Keene who persuaded Lester to return to Ceylon, saying "You should be making films in your own country about your own people". This film maker, whom Lester considers his guru and a key 'figure of destiny' in his life, spent some time in newly independent Ceylon heading the Government Film Unit (GFU) that Lester himself was to join and work with from 1952 to 1955. What was Lester's designation at GFU?

4. Lester acknowledges that working with Ralph Keene on documentary film production was a seminal influence on later feature film making. Indeed, one particular documentary made by Keene is described by Lester as the one that inspired his first feature film Rekava (The Line of Destiny, 1956). What was this documentary, the story of a village and its people, which Lester assisted Keene in making?

5. One of the earliest documentary films that Lester directed for the GFU was titled Conquest in the Dry Zone (14 mins, 1954). It won a diploma of honour at the Venice International Film Festival in 1954. What was the theme of this film?

6. In 1955, Lester was asked by his government employers to make a documentary about the traffic police. He did, but in the form of a tongue-in-cheek short film titled 'Be Safe or Be Sorry', about a lady driver who snarls up all traffic on the Galle Road. This twist made it popular when released in the cinemas, but more significantly, it marked the film debut of an actress who went on to play many leading roles and still remains cinematically active, over half a century later. Who is she?

7. In 1955, after four years of documentary film making, Lester left the GFU to pursue his own career in film making. Two of his GFU colleagues left the security of a government job at the same time to join Lester in this adventure. They played key technical roles in Lester's first few feature films and went on to become leading names in the Lankan cinema. One was cinematographer Willie Blake. Who was the other, who excelled as a film editor and director?

8. Sri Lanka's first coal-fired electricity generation plant was inaugurated on March 22, 2011 in Norochcholai, Puttlam district. The first stage of the Puttlam Power Plant, or Lakvijaya Power Plant as it is now named, generates 300 MegaWatts (MW) of power. When the second stage is also completed by 2014, how many MW in total will this power plant generate?

9. Sri Lanka's second coal-fired power plant is under construction in Sampur, whose first stage is due to be completed in 2014. It is being built by the National Thermal Power Corporation of India and will have a total installed capacity of 1,000 megaWatts when both stages are completed. In which district is the Sampur power plant located?

10. Elizabeth Taylor, who died on March 23, 2011 aged 79, was the first actress in the world to have earned a million US Dollars for a role in a film. She earned that for her leading role in which 1963 movie? (about which she said: "If someone is dumb enough to offer me a million dollars to make a picture, I'm certainly not dumb enough to turn it down!")

11. The late Elizabeth Taylor was one of the first big-name Hollywood stars who took up the then emerging and still controversial cause for HIV-AIDS and started campaigning to fight the pandemic disease, confront discrimination against those who contracted it and to expand research, treatment access, education and government funding. She was especially motivated to do so after the death of her friend, himself a leading actor who died of HIV-AIDS in 1985. Who was he?

12. Elizabeth Talyor came to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) to act in the Hollywood film Elephant Walk which was released by Paramount Pictures in 1954. She played the character of Ruth Wiley, a young British woman who marries a British planter follows him to Ceylon. She later finds out that her husband's father had built the estate bungalow on the path where wild elephants travel, resulting in occasional encounters between humans and elephants.

Another Hollywood star had originally signed up to play this role and even arrived in Ceylon, but could not perform as a result of her bipolar disorder. Whom did Liz Taylor replace on relatively short notice? (Many long shots and shots from behind used in the film are of this first actress!)

13. The 1954 movie Elephant Walk was directed by William Dieterle, and starred Elizabeth Taylor, Dana Andrews, Peter Finch and Abraham Sofaer. It was based on the 1948 novel with the same title, written by 'Robert Standish', which was actually the pseudonym of which English novelist?

14. As at March 25, 2011, there were 14 cricketers who had scored career total runs over 9,000 in one day internationals (ODIs). Among them are four Indians and four Sri Lankans. Can you name the Sri Lankan batsmen to have each scored over 9,000 ODI runs?

15. In February 2007, British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson launched Virgin Earth Challenge, a new prize for anyone, anywhere in the world who can devise a system to remove a 'significant amount' of global-warming greenhouse gases - equivalent to 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide or more - every year from the atmosphere for at least a decade. Four years later, no one has yet claimed this very substantial prize. How much is on offer to the winner?

Answers will be published next week

Last week's answers

1. Ukraine
2. Belarus (60 percent of the radioactive fall-out landed in this country)
3. Caecium-137
4. The becquerel (symbol: Bq). The older unit for radioactivity was the Curie
5. France, which had 16.1 percent of world total nuclear energy capacity in 2008 (77 percent of its electricity was generated from nuclear power plants)
6. Beijing
7. Nikolai Gogol (1809 - 1852)
8. Milan Kundera
9. Bavatharanaya (Siddhartha's Quest)
10. Zambia and Zimbabwe
11. Francois Pienaar
12. George Bernard Shaw
13. Akron
14. The Bar Code
15. Sir Richard Aluvihare (1895 - 1976)

Answer our Wiz quiz and win valuable book vouchers from Sarasavi Book Shop. Mail your answers to Wiz quiz, Daily News, Lake House, No 35, D R Wijewardena Mawatha, Colombo 10 or email to punch@dailynews.lk with your address, ID and contact numbers to reach us on or before Friday. Failure to provide these information will disqualify you.

In case there are more than one entry with equal number of correct answers, winners will be picked by a draw. Winners can get their vouchers from the Manager of new Sarasavi Book Shop Nugegoda.

Last week's winners

First place - Madusanka Thilakarathne, Anuradhapura

Second place - Upeksha Kodithuwakku, Nugegoda

Third place - Shanali Perera