‘One story, a criticism on entire system’- Kothalawala
View(s):“This film is all about the system we are in. The amount of freedom and equality we enjoy and how the poor and those less affluent suffer specially in the hand of unfair social system. It is just a one story but it exposes the injustices and indifferences in the entire society,” explained Sarath Kothalawala, award winning stage and cinema actor, script writer and the co-director of ‘The Newspaper’.
Co-director Sarath Kothalawala
The opening for the film was a true, similar incident. “Kumara (Thirimadura) and I wrote this script following a news about a bomb blast in a bus carrying Sri Lankan military and it was wrongly reported that the suicide bomber was one of the soldiers. But later this was corrected in a tiny news but the damage caused to soldier and his family was beyond repair,”.
Sarath who missed university entrance with just two marks did a number of jobs until he started an interest in theatre and acting early 1990. He first joined the street drama group- ‘Diriya Kedella’ done by veteran actor Jayalal Rohan. Started in the theatre he won the Best Actor award in short play in 2000 and both the Best Actor and the Best Supporting Actor 2002 for Mahesh Kumara’s ‘Gewanne Nethnam Bambu Gahannada’ based on Dario Fo’s play ‘Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!’ and Sunil Chandrasiri’s play ‘Samawenna Weradimak’ based on a play by the British playwright Ray Cooney respectively. In 2003 Sarath won the Best Producer, the Best Director and the Best Scriptwriter awards at the State Drama Festival for his play ‘Sookarayan Samaga’. “I am grateful to a number of playwrights like K. B. Herath, Douglas Siriwardena and Sunil Chandrasiri and many senior actors like Jayalal Rohana and Mahendra Perera. I was inspired by them,” said Kothalawala.
Attracted by the glamour and the power of cinema, Sarath started learning it and his first guru was veteran director Shelton Payagala and his first role was in Linton Semage’s film ‘Padhadaya’ (The Vagabond).
In cinema Sarath won the Best Actor Awards both at the Golden Hiru award and Derana awards and the Best Script Writer at the Derana awards for ‘Thanha Rathi Ranga’ film. Though he has played over 200 teledramas, Sarath says his heart is with the theatre and the cinema.
“We wrote this script for a period of five years and it became a reality because of the producers specially Bandula Gunawardena, who was my teacher,” said Sarath while thanking H. D. Premasiri and Ravindra Guruge.
“If not for the producers this films would still remain as a script” Sarath said.