Channa’s ‘Sanda Diya Salu’, a Sri Lanka -India joint venture

Actor, director Channa Perera's second directorial venture, 'Sanda Diya Salu' will be launched as an Indian-Sri Lankan joint production soon. Documents were signed between officials of Gemini Studio, one of the leading studios in India and National Film Corporation (NFC) for the joint production of Rs. 30 million budget film.

'Sanda Diya Salu' will create history for the Sri Lankan film industry as it will have simultaneous releases in India and Sri Lanka in June next. While the film will be released for nearly 30 theatres of NFC 'Ridma' circuit cinemas here, ten more Tamil and Telugu copies will be released in several states in India.

Following the financially successful ‘Anjalika’, Channa and Sri Lankan born Indian actor Puja Uma Shankar will play in the lead roles. Adding colour to 'Sanda Diya Salu' veteran actress Malani Fonseka will play a key role with talented Luxman Mendis while there are a host of other actors to join them in additional roles.

Scripted and story written by Channa himself, the film is to revolve around a serious story created with a commercial presentation. "The film has a serious theme which is presented with lighter and commercial presentation," said Channa speaking about his latest directorial venture. The director says that the film is to highlight Sri Lankan culture and traditions including age old traditional medicinal practices.

"I wanted to show our own traditional values and the importance of cultural values with this film," Channa added. The film will be entirely shot in beautiful locations in Sri Lanka. "And the film will be an opportunity to showcase the richly beautiful locations which had not caught the eye of outsiders except a few world renown filmmakers like David Lean and Steven Spielberg," Channa added.

The joint venture will enable the sharing of advanced technical facilities for the film including 'Arri 435' German made camera which will be used for the first time for a Sri Lankan film. And the entire post production stage of the film will be completed in India.

The crew will include Elmo Halliday as the editor, Saliya Liyanarachchi as the art director, Pushpakumara Rajaguru as the cinematographer. Make up will be handled by Priyantha Dissanayake, Rozanne Diasz designs the costumes and Rohana Weerasinghe is responsible for the musical score. Ranjan Prasanna is the assistant director while Prasanna Kithulgama is the production manager. The filming of ‘Sanda Diya Salu’ will begin in early February.