A birthday gift to the Queen of silver screen
View(s):- Digitally restored ‘Akasa Kusum’
By Susitha R. Fernando
Digitally restored Prasanna Vithanage’s film ‘Akasa Kusum’ (Flowers of the Sky) will be released in Sri Lanka from April 30 coinciding with the birthday of veteran actress Malani Fonseka who is considered as Queen of Sri Lanka’s Silver screen.
The film with improved picture and sound quality will have a limited release at seven theatres including PVR – One Galle Face, CCC – Colombo 2, Amity Lite- Maharagama, Max Lite-Moratuwa, Regal- Gampaha, New Imperial- Kurunegala and Milano- Kegalle.
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- Prasanna Vithanage
“Restoration done in 4K quality, this is a birthday gift to Malani Akka who turns 78 years on Wednesday April 30,” Prasanna Vithanage who is married to Malani’s younger sister Damayanthi said.
“Last year I promised Malani Akka to give this birthday gift at her 77th birthday. But we couldn’t make it,” Prasanna said.
‘Akasa Kusum’ won the prestigious Silver Peacock Award for the Best Actress at the 39th International Indian Film Festival in 2009 and the film also won the Certificate for Best Performance. Malani also won the Best Actress award at the 7th Levanthe International Film Festival in 2010.
Had its international premiere at the Pusan International Film Festival, in Korea, the film is woven around a tragedy faced by a once popular actress who now leads a secluded life in her own world.
In the process of digital restoration of “Akasa Kusum’, the latest artificial intelligent (AI) has been used. “This helped us to restore with higher quality,” Vithanage added.
“As a country we need to preserve our film heritage. That is not for the present but for the future. This is something that Dr. Lester James Peries was yearning for all his life,” Vithanage said while adding that he managed to preserve all his films.
“We know few of our films were restored and upgraded to digital version with the international support. Lester James Peries’ ‘Nidhanaya’ and ‘Gam Peraliya’ was restored with the support of France and Dharmasena Pathiraja’s ‘Bambaru Evith’ (The Wasps are here) was restored with the support of Singapore Film Archives. ‘Gehenu Lamai’ has been restored with the support of French Embassy in Sri Lanka and Indian Film Heritage and it is done in Bologna in Italy,”. Prasanna explained.
The experienced filmmaker is optimistic that with the support of AI film restoration and digitizing is much easier and save both time and money too.
“We would be able to see some of the nuances of Malani Akka’s performance in ‘Akasa Kusum’ due to the use of AI technology,” Prasanna stated.
Keen on restoring yesteryear cinema, Prasanna says that Sri Lanka can easily start the restoration with the support of other countries. “As a first step we need to get a scanner and start copying the available films,”. However Prasanna also admitted that there are issues relating to the ownership of copies as they had been sold to other parties which complicates the issues relating to the copyrights.
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