ABC to promote Documentary Filmmaking
View(s):The Asian Broadcasters’ Council (ABC) is an orgnaisation that was formed to promote documentary filmmaking as an art and a social campaign.
It has planned to produce documentary programs on social, cultural, religious, environmental, and human rights related issues.
With these aims in mind, the ABC has planned to produce a documentary film featuring the plight of war refugees in Sri Lanka as its debut venture.
The group has planned to do extensive research on the issue by holding discussions with both domestic and expat refugees, and collating their stories for the documentary.
The organisation is also to discuss with Sri Lankans whether they would be willing to return to their motherland, with the idea of healing wounds and helping to rebuild various infrastructural facilities in the North and East.
The pilot programme in the series of documentaries revolving around this issue will be titled “Reunion”. It will be subtitled “Welcome Back”, with sequels to this entitled “Colour of the Shelter” (on Sri Lankan refugees in India) and “Break the Silence” (on Sri Lanka today), while all three will be presented by the ABC.
‘Reunion’ is to be filmed in France, a country that holds a population of more than 150,000 settled Sri Lankans, with a production team headed by Nimalananda Hettiarachchi (Chairman of the ABC and writer-director), M. Rajabdeen (Secretary and Assistant Director), U. A. David (Director of Social Media and Presenter), Richard Muni (Director and Broadcast Media Present), Fazeen Jukeer (Treasurer and Production Coordinator), Brian Rathnasekera (Technical Advisor and Director of Photography) and Wasantha Wakkumbura (Director and IT analyst). Shooting of the documentaries is to be commenced this year.
The ABC hopes that through this venture, a sea of unexposed, unspoken, and unparalleled human interest stories could be dug up, an essential work needed in terms of reconciliation in the ethnic conflict that has ailed Sri Lanka for over three decades.
What will be caught in the documentaries is the human aspect to the stories that have attended on their characters for well over 30 years.
At the same time, the ABC’s webpage will introduce a news flash titled “Prime Lanka”, consisting of social, cultural, religious, environmental, and human rights issues, reflected and refracted through high-degree and high-quality broadcast journalism.
More information could be obtained by writing to: The Chairman, Asian Broadcasters’ Council – Sri Lanka, No 70/5/B, D. S. Senanayake Mawatha, Colombo 8.