Movies with different themes always stay with the viewers. This time, you can watch such a film, which has been gifted to the Sri Lankan cinema, on national television. The movie The Newspaper released in 2020 was produced by Dr. Bandula Gunawardena, Ravindra Guruge and H. D. Premasiri. The main feature of this film is that both the directors who directed the film are acting in lead roles. The two main characters were played by Sarath Kothalawala and Kumara Thirimadura. The very beginning of the film’s screening was based on a specific issue. That is, this being the latest movie screened for the opening of cinema halls that were closed for 105 days due to the Corona epidemic.
The basic seed of the story theme of the film is wrong information in a news item published in a newspaper. Guna and his family, who were living a good life, are branded as terrorists because of these incorrect facts. The villagers, who brand Guna and his family as terrorists, follow the law of the jungle and even set Guna’s house on fire, leaving him to lead a crippled life.
Since then, he becomes the owner of a wheelchair. In the meantime, Guna is left with only one friend. His name is Lewis. The forward flow of this 103-minute film takes place on this basis.
Due to one incident, many incidents are depicted and various aspects are shown and a touch is also made regarding robberies and drugs which are constant happenings in society, making it the main events that are connected to the film. Therefore, the end of the film is also written in such a way that the events are one on top of the other. The sequence of events of the film begins with the arrival of Guna and Lewis in Colombo and the start of their visiting newspaper offices. They arrive thus, with the aim of correcting the wrong news item, in a newspaper that unfairly blamed Guna’s brother.
In the beginning, a special screening of the film was held on 29 June 2020 at the Savoy Premier Hall, Wellawatta. While watching the movie, the fact depicted is that one has to do someone else’s job as a qualification for doing one task. Even if the newspaper rejects their news, they can forward it to a newspaper only with the intervention of the police. It was because the two of them helped the police to catch a robber. With the screening of this film, the fact that the two directors have made an effort to read society well is what has led to the attention of the audience.
It must be said that the movie’s theme song was subject to a lot of discussion. There were several factors that were joined together. One of them is that Dr. Nanda Malani won the award for the best rendering of a song after many years of joining background singing in films. The song composed by Sunil Ariyaratne was set to music by Gayathri Khemadasa, daughter of Premasiri Khemadasa.
‘Dhole diyath nethi viya numba nahawannata
Thana kirith hinga viya thol sangawannata
Katura bhoga thibune bada purawannata
Sama veyan puthune, numba weduwaata”
There was no water in the stream to bathe you
There was not enough breast milk to hide the lips
Crops that grew in arid zones were plentiful
Forgive me son for giving birth to you’
Gayathri has this to say about the film’s music.
“Kumara Thirimadura and Sarath Kothalawala talked to me and asked me to do the music for this film. Earlier I was involved in the music work in one of their films. This was the second film for which I did the music. I was also involved in music work for foreign films, previously. Something that has to be mentioned specifically is that with the international awards won by the film, The Newspaper, for its music, I started receiving more responses from abroad.
The film stars Sarath Kothalawala (Guna) as Kumara Thirimadura (Lewis) in addition to Dharmapriya Dias, Pubudu Chathuranga, Gihan Fernando, Shyam Fernando, Giriraj Kaushalya, Wasantha Kumaravila, Nethali Nanayakkara, Mihira Sirithilaka as well as Jayalal Rohana, Umayangana Wickremasinghe, Dimuthu Chinthaka, Dayadeva Edirisinghe. Hemantha Eeriyagama, Mashi Siriwardena, Sarath Karunaratne, Nilmini Kottegoda, Sarath Kulatunga, Ananda Athukorala, Sarath Chandrasiri, Ajith Lokuge, Ruwan Madanayake, Wasantha Moragoda, Rukmal Nirosh, Chinthaka Peiris, Janaka Ranasinghe and Priyantha Sirikumara were among the cast.
Sarath Kothalawala and Kumara Thirimadura wrote the script and directed the film and Chandana Jayasinghe is the cinematographer. Music of the film The Newspaper is directed by Gayathri Khemadasa and editing is by Rukmal Nirosh.
This film was highly praised by film critics both at home and abroad and won many awards at home and abroad. The film won its first international award by being awarded as the second-best film at the Asian Film Festival at the Bangalore International Film Festival (BIFFES) in 2022. Then ‘The Newspaper’ won its second international award at the 23rd London Rainbow Film Festival. In this, the film won the award for the best director. The film festival was held from May 29 to June 5, 2022, and after special programmes like quiz programmes, seminars, etc., the victorious film was named. After winning these two awards, two films from Sri Lanka were selected for the 13th Melbourne Indian Film Festival held in Melbourne, Australia from 12th to 30th August 2022. One of those films was The Newspaper. The newspaper was among the films nominated for the best film in the Indian subcontinent.
Subsequently, Kumara Thirimadura and Sarath Kothalawala got the opportunity to win the best actor award in the competition section of the Kazan Film Festival held in Russia in September 2022. On that day, Minister Bandula Gunawardena, who attended the closing of the festival after being invited by the organizers of the film festival, brought the award back to the two actors. The film festival was named Kazan International Muslim Film Festival.
The film, ‘The newspaper’, which won many international awards including the best actor award at the Kazan International Muslim Film Festival and the best director award at the Rainbow Film Festival in London, was recognized locally for the first-time last September. The award ceremony organized by the Colombo District Cultural Authority was named ‘Kolomthota Harasara Pranama’. In the award ceremony, the directors of the film as well as Kumara Thirimadura and Sarath Kothalawala, who were involved in the main role, were subject to appreciation, and the co-producers of the film, Dr. Bandula Gunawardena, Minister of Mass Media and Transport, President of the Sarasavi Publishing House H. D. Premasiri and editor Ravindra Guruge received special awards. Among all these things, certificates were also presented to other artisans. Internationally, the film ‘The Newspaper’ has been nominated for many awards, but after 3 years of receiving the awards, the first domestic recognition is the ‘Kolomthota Harasara Pranama’ awards ceremony.
The 2020 film ‘The Newspaper’ gave rise to a fresh dialogue at the 20th Presidential Awards Film Festival held recently, at this film awards ceremony which was held after three years, Kumara Thirimadura won the best actor award from among the films released in 2020. The reasons for this to be well worth it was because the film ‘The Newspaper’ won the award for the best film of the year 2020. That value increased considerably, when Nanda Malani, who joined the film background singing after some time, won the award for the best singing.
Before the 103-minute film The Newspaper is screened on National Television at 10.00 tonight, a film review conducted by Dr. Bandula Gunawardena, Buddhadasa Galappaththi, Kumara Thirimadura and veteran film critic Gamini Weragama will also be telecast from 9.30 pm onwards.
Rajitha Basnayake