Full Name: Nilendra Deshapriya
Hometown: Moratuwa
Status: Married
Birthday: 29th July
Idols: Krzysztof Kieślowski, Federico Fellini, Andrei Tarkovsky
Passions: Cinema, Reading, Music, Poetry, Paintings, Meditation and Driving

Favourite Colour - Red

Tell me about your experience giving life to "Thanha Rathi Ranga" (BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW).

The team is the force behind the success story of Thanha Rathi Ranga. The two scriptwriters Sarath Kothalawala and Kumara Thirimadura, all the technicians including the cinematographer Dhanushka Gunathilake, the music directors Gayathri and Anupa Khemadasa, the associate director and producer Nathasha Dream and the first assistant director Veronika Marasinghe are FIRST TIMERS in the industry. I think because of the freshness of this team a lot of energy was added to the film. It would be a completely different story if I tried out with professionals. I had my vision and they supported me immensely within their purview. Therefore the honour and respect received for the film goes to them and also to my country.

Your passion for movies and television, when did you know that you were meant to create magic on screen, tell me about your childhood?

My passion for cinema started when I was only seven years old. My grandmother who was a social worker used to relate bedtime stories to me, my mother used to do the same when I was a kid. I still remember the very first day my grandmother took me to a cinema hall to watch the movie The Ten Commandments. I remember how much I protested, crying out aloud hesitating to watch the film. Then suddenly the magic moment arrived when the third bell rang, the curtain gradually went up and there was pin-drop silence. From that day onwards I wanted to become a film maker.

What is something you learned in the last week?

Don’t be complacent in this idea driven business.

What would you say was the biggest challenge in making Thanha Rathi Ranga?

I do something that mainstream cinema doesn't do. I had a series of workshops with all the actors, I didn't make a commitment to anybody but I just continued the workshops on a daily basis and picked the actors with a lot of care and patience. I had rehearsals with the chosen actors almost on a daily basis. It was important for me that the three protagonists of the film knew the mechanism and mannerism of a three-wheeler driver. Each character started living the character long before we shot the film. It was a strenuous process that led to a lot of success in the end.

Tell me a little bit about your family?

My wife is the reason behind my success. She had stood by me through thick and thin and supported me immensely to focus on my career while taking care of our four beautiful daughters. My daughters Nathasha Dream, Nadeesha Dilini, Nikita Deana and Nathali Devinka are all artists and are very much attached to me and also work very closely with me. I have a grandson named Siddharth Aaryan whom I have dedicated this film to. This film is for Siddharth, his mother and to her mother, Judy.

The film won the Global Film Initiative, what would you say is the unique feature in this film?

The citation from the GFI is self-explanatory.

The Global Film Initiative Citation

“Our selection of Thanha Rathi Ranga [BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW] for a Global Film Initiative production grant is the result of an extensive and competitive review process. Many compelling projects were reviewed by our grants committee but it was your film’s promise of artistic excellence that led to its selection; cinematically, it demonstrated innovative and accomplished storytelling, offering audiences a unique perspective on daily life in Sri Lanka and exemplifying the key element we seek in all grant recipients.” - Susan Weeks Coulter, Founder and Board Chair, The Global Film Initiative.

What is your personal opinion about the Sri Lankan film industry?

Firstly I don’t believe in an industry where you don’t make quality films. An industry without proper cinemas and theatres and a National Policy to protect it. In Sri Lankan cinema most of the characters are lost in a labyrinth of suffering and my films make no exception. No artist can escape or eschew reality. Your art is a mode of self-expression and after living in the middle of a brewing turmoil for 30 long years, you cannot detach yourself from the harrowing memories.

What do you think about the economy? And do you feel it’s hard to find funding to support talent and art?

We are a booming economy. And I am sure in the months to come we will have a new national policy on supporting art and talent.

What are your upcoming projects?

They Dance Alone

“Why are these women here dancing on their own?
Why is there this sadness in their eyes?
They’re dancing with the missing
They’re dancing with the dead
They dance with the invisible ones
Their anguish is unsaid
They’re dancing with their fathers
They’re dancing with their sons
They’re dancing with their husbands
They dance alone...”

The famous song composed by Sting is an anguished outpour inspired by a brutal reality - droves of Chilean women dancing Cueca, their national dance, carrying the photographs of their dear ones who went vanishing under the dictatorship of Pinochet. It’s the same tyranny and trauma that form the core of my latest film ‘They Dance Alone’, which is a ‘politically sensitive one’.

There are people who live never-ending tragedies. The film is about abducted journalist Richard de Zoysa who is later found dead.
It captures the deeply upsetting plight of his mother, Dr.Manorani Saravanamuttu who fights the system for justice. It’s the women who bear the brunt, and it’s the women who are the strong ones, because, when you lose a child you lose yourself.

The film is produced by Bandula Gunawardana and the filming will start soon.

Your all-time favourite movie?

Blue, White, Red Trilogy by Krzysztof Kieślowski.

In the Spot

Your favourite Sri Lankan director? Prasanna Vithanage/ Asoka Handagama/ Vimukthi Jayasundara.

Prasanna Vithanage. 

Malini Fonseka / Swarna Mallawarachchi / Anoja Weerasinghe?

Swarna Mallawarachchi.

Your personal favourite on screen?

Juliette Binoche/Penelope Cruz.

Director’s Profile

Nilendra Deshapriya, born in 1962, studied drama and theatre at school and at the age of fourteen he wrote his first stage play “The Horse Carriage” inspired by the film Rashoman by the legendary Akira Kurosawa which became a huge success. He was an active member of the “group 78” at the Lionel Wendt Theatre, a community where the creative elite gathered during his time and produced many theatre productions.

In a career spanning 30 years, Nilendra Deshpriya embarked on his journey of filmmaking as an assistant director with highly reputed film directors’ in both local and international productions. He joined the film industry in 1980 with the movie “Regina” by Thilak Lakshman Seneviratne. Few of the landmarks amongst many successful art house productions he worked in are; “Siri Medura” (The Mansion) which represented Sri-Lanka at 'Festival De Nantes' in France in 1983, Keli Madala by DB Nihansinghe which represented Sri Lanka at the Singapore Film festival in 1984. Later Prasanna Vithanage’s “Sisila Gini Gani” (Disappearance), Surabidena (A womb for hire) which Participated in Singapore & Hawaii International Film festivals and Maruthaya (Storm) which participated in Frighbourg Film festival in Switzerland.

In 1997 Nilendra contributed as Sri Lankan Assistant Director for a BBC television adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s novel “Midnights Children”. Then he joined the Maharaja Organisation to launch its flagship channel Sirasa TV in 1998 as Director Entertainment and then Director of Broadcasting. He produced the first ever Sri Lankan daily soap series in collaboration with Sirasa TV & Sri Adhikaari Brothers India. Amongst many other phenomenal productions he was the Sri Lankan Executive Producer of the 27 hour long live broadcast connecting the 5 continents, produced by BBC London and WGBH Boston.

Later he rose to become one of Sri Lanka’s most sought after television personalities who introduced the genre Reality TV to Sri Lankan audiences, producing many successful television formats such as Super Star based on singing talent all over the nation which garnered the highest ever television ratings in the history of Sri Lankan television and also the franchised version of Who Wants To be A Millionaire.

“Between Yesterday and Tomorrow” is his directorial debut as a film director.