Highlights of the "Sarasaviya Film Festival"

I’m back with another topic that is related to “arts, literature and entertainment” area of quizzing. I thought of continuing from where we left with the last post on the history of the Sinhala cinema.

This time, I thought of focusing on one of the famous award festivals of the Sinhala cinema over the years, “The Sarasaviya Awards”. Just like the Oscars for the Hollywood fans and Filmfare Awards for the Bollywood fans, it's the Sarasaviya Awards for the Sri Lankan cinema fans which usually take place once a year. The awards ceremony is organized by the “Sarasaviya” Magazine, published by Lake House (Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Limited).

Now it’s time to dig into some of the highlights of the awards festival which has taken place almost over 50 years back.

• The first Sarasaviya film festival was held on May 9, 1964 at the Asoka Cinema Hall, Colombo.
• Gamperaliya was regarded as the best film in the inaugural festival, and it was awarded to its producer Anton Wickremasinghe. Sir Lester James Peiris and Regi Siriwardena won the awards for best director and best script-writer, respectively and that too was for Gamperaliya.
• D.R. Nanayakkara was awarded the best actor title for his performance in Sikuru Tharuwa, another popular film in the 1964 film festival. The best actress award was bagged by Punya Heendeniya for her performance in Gamperaliya.
• Over the years the actor who has won the “Best Actor” award as many as anyone else is the legendary actor, Joe Abeywickrema, who has won it 8 times.
• He was first awarded the “Best Actor” award in 1966, for the film “Sarawita”.
• Swarna Mallawaarachchi has won the “Best Actress” award in most occasions, by winning it 5 times, the first time being in 1972, for her performance in the film “Dadayama”.
• Ironically Malini Fonseka has only won the “Best Actress” award 3 times (1980, 1982 & 1983), while Gamini Fonseka has won the “Best Actor” award six times (1965, 1967, 1968, 1980, 1981 & 1986).
• One of the legendary directors of the Sinhala Cinema, Dr. Lester James Pieris has won the “Best Director” Award the most no. times (3), by winning it in 1964, 1967 & 1969.
• In 1964, Narada Disasekara won the inaugural award for the “Best Male Playback Singer” for “Ranmuthu Doowa”. Dr. W.D. Amaradewa is the artist to win this award most times.

History of Sinhala Cinema - 1

One of the pretty interesting areas when it comes to quizzing is “Arts, Literature and Entertainment”, though personally for me it’s one of the least preferred areas.

In this article I’ll be focusing some of the important highlights of the Sinhala Cinema. The key highlights since the very first Sinhala film was produced are captured through the article.

There is a whole lot that we can discuss on this topic, thus I thought of breaking this into few sections when posting. So here goes the first post. Hope you will enjoy.

• Directed by Jyotish Sinha, the very first Sinhala film in the history of Ceylon was “Kadawunu Poronduwa”, which was produced in 1947. The film was produced by S.M.Nayagam of Chitra Kala Movietone, while the music composing was done by Narayana Aiyer.

• Even though it is popularly held that ‘Rekhava’, made in 1956 by pioneer director Lester James Peries, was the first Sinhala film to be shot completely out of studio, it was really the film "Gambada Sundari", made in 1950 which was the first film shot outside studios.

• The first Sinhala film to be produced without a song was Gamperaliya, directed by Sir Lester James Pieris (1964). The producer Anton Wicremasinghe was awarded the Silver Peacock at the New Delhi International Film Festival for Gamperaliya.

• “Ranmuthu Duwa” was the first colour full-length Sinhalese language film to be produced in Sri Lanka (produced in 1962). The film was produced by Shesha Palihakkara and directed by Mike Wilson, who also made his debut as a feature director. Editing was done by Titus Thotawatta, while music was composed by W.D. Amaradeva the Great.

• W.A. Silva’s novel “Kalae Handa” was the first Sinhala novel to be produced as a film.

History of the Rugby World Cup....

After a bit of a brief break, once again I warmly welcome all of you to “Quiz with Deran”. The year 2011 is now on, and on this year we’ve got quite a big number of mega sporting events on the world to be staged up. Among them the Cricket World Cup in India, Sri Lanka & Bangladesh and the Rugby World Cup scheduled in New Zealand will stand out.

On this post, I will highlight some key stuff related to the history of the Rugby World Cup. Hope all you rugby fans out there will enjoy.

• The first ever Rugby World Cup was held in Australia and New Zealand in 1987, and there were 16 nations who took part. The New Zealand All Blacks became the first ever champions in the history of Rugby World Cup by defeating France in the final.

• Since then the tournament has been held once in every four years (1991, 1995, 1999, 2003 & 2007). New Zealand (1987), Australia (1991, 1999), South Africa (1995, 2007) and England (2003) have emerged as Champions of the Rugby World Cup from those events which have been staged so far.

• The trophy awarded is named as the William Webb Ellis Cup as a tribute to William Ellis.

• Ireland, Fiji, Canada and Samoa are the nations that have progressed to the quarter finals of the Rugby World Cups, but have never progressed beyond that stage.

• The record for most overall points accumulated in the final stages is held by English player Jonny Wilkinson.

Johnny Wilkinson (ENG)

• Grant Fox of New Zealand holds the record for most points in one competition, with 126 in 1987.

• Jason Leonard of England holds the record for most appearances with 22 between 1991 and 2003.

• Simon Culhane holds the record for most points in a match by one player, 45, as well as the record for most conversions in a match, 20.

Simon Culhane (NZ)

• Marc Ellis holds the record for most tries in a match, scoring six.

• New Zealander Jonah Lomu holds the records for overall tries in the final stages — 15 altogether from the 1995 and 1999 tournaments.

Jonah Lomu (NZ)

• Jonah Lomu and South African Bryan Habana share the most tries in one competition, with 8.

• The record for most penalties in a tournament, 31, is held by Gonzalo Quesada.

• Most drop goals in a match (5) is held by South Africa's Jannie de Beer.

• The most points scored in a game is 145 — by the All Blacks against Japan in 1995, with the widest margin being 142, held by Australia in a match against Namibia in 2003.