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.