12 million viewers to see the beauty of the island through a fascinating love story shot on location in Sri Lanka .
The 90 minute TV series tells a story about unusual, elegant, and spectacular locations around the world, focusing mainly on the positive aspects of each country, its highlights, traditional features, and exceptional qualities. With the involvement, of the Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau (SLTPB), Sri Lanka was selected as a location in March 2008, and the tele film is expected to be viewed by millions of people from Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, to name a few.
Sites in Kandy, Polonnaruwa, Nuwara Eliya, Colombo, and Galle will be featured in the series that will be telecast in 2010 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland to an audience of over 12 million viewers.
“Sri Lanka has so much to offer the world and this television series promises to take that message across to potential travellers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland”. This initiative also signifies the innovative and cost effective initiatives adopted by Sri Lanka Tourism to promote the island internationally,” stated Bernard Goonetilleke, the Chairman of Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau.
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Lisa Film, the Austrian based producer of Dream Hotel specializes in the production of non-violent feature films, TV movies, and TV series. Each year two countries are selected to be featured in the Dream Hotel production with previous locations including Seychelles, Mauritius, Bali, Mexico, South Africa, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, India, and the Dominican Republic. Lately, it has been voted as the most popular television series in Germany.
“We have selected Sri Lanka after a lengthy process. We are extremely happy of our decision and this is indeed a beautiful country. On screen, it lends itself to be wonderfully photogenic and suits our theme, perfectly. The beauty of this country should be exposed to our extensive viewership and we are happy to do that for this island,” said the director of the tele-film, Otto W Retzer.
Lisa Film will be working with the local film crew of The Film Team (Pvt) Ltd, headed by Ravindra Randeniya, the veteran Sri Lankan film personality, and supported by Errol Kelly, the Art Director on this production who was instrumental in designing and building all sets of the Deepa Mehta’s movie Water filmed in Sri Lanka.
Commenting on the venture, Mr Randeniya stated, “The Film Team has always been associated with professionalism and commitment, and has been commended for our high production values. The Dream Hotel project is a personification of these values and we are elated to be associated with the production”.
Meanwhile, the world focuses on Sri Lanka this week, as it is selected as the “Location of the Week” on the location guide website – a resource website for location filming worldwide. The Home Page of this site is a working still of the Nestea TV Commercial handled by The Film Team and filmed in Talawakelle. The product was specially launched by Nestea Taiwan, at the Beijing Olympics, and the bottle has a graphic of our island. Furthermore, the product is daubed as the ‘Tea of the World’. The link to the website is:http://www.thelocationguide.com/.
The SLTPB has been in the forefront of promoting Sri Lanka internationally, adopting new, cost effective strategies including support for a visiting journalist programme and television and movie filming projects.
The Dream Hotel production is among a number of initiatives undertaken by the SLTPB, with a few more major projects in the pipeline for 2009. |
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