Features

Sugathapala senarath Yapa: The one who went away

Published

3 years ago

2022/08/26

By Uditha Devapriya
Archive images courtesy of Gordon de Silva

In 2016 Torana Video Movies released Hanthane Kathawa. One of the last Sinhala films to depict university students in a romantic light, Hanthane Kathawa (1969) marked the debut of the man who became the Sinhala cinema’s most popular star, Vijaya Kumaratunga. It was also the last in a series of films which revolved around the theme of unrequited love, the others including Dahasak Sithuvili, Romeo Juliet Kathawak, Bakmaha Deege, and arguably the best of them all, Golu Hadawatha. Though classical in their conception, these works are important, in that they heralded both the end of an era in the Sinhalese cinema and marked the entry of those who would play a major role in the new cinema.

Probably no other film epitomised this shift than did Hanthane Kathawa. Kumaratunga would, of course, figure prominently in the new Sinhala cinema. Also making their debuts alongside him were the likes of Amarasiri Kalansooriya and Daya Tennakoon. Tennakoon and Dharmasena Pathiraja, then studying at the Peradeniya University, where the story is set, made a significant contribution to the mood and the tenor of the film. Though very few critics have noted this aspect to the film, Pathiraja’s repertoire of actors – who he would use again and again – included those who made their entry in Hanthane Kathawa. In that regard, the latter marked an interregnum between two historical eras.

On its own, Hanthane Kathawa stands out rather well. The acting is convincing – perhaps because many of the cast members were real-life university students – and the music, by Premasiri Khemadasa, who for the first and last time in his career worked with Mahagama Sekara, figures in among the best he composed for any film. It marked the last time Tony Ranasinghe played the role of a sympathetic everyman: practically every role he got in the 1970s were as hardened, cynical protagonists or antagonists. It also signalled the return of Swarna Mallawarachchi, who would soon leave Sri Lanka. As for the story, it is captivating, if not simple, revolving around a theme one can identify with at once. For me, it is one of the few Sinhala films that remain as fresh today as it was at the time of its release.

More than anything, the film reveals the eclecticism of its director. There are references to other films and works of art which one can easily miss. Its theme – a contest between two completely different teenagers over a woman – borrows from two somewhat interrelated stories: the bandit’s version of events in Kurosawa’s Rashomon, and the last few sequences in Sarachchandra’s Maname. To this one can add another reference: Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water. Neither Rashomon nor Knife in the Water was playing at mainstream halls in Sri Lanka at the time; these were art-house works, screened at places like the British Council and the American Center. That the director had absorbed these influences obviously tells us that he was an avid cinephile eager to come up with a different work of art.

And yet, very little has been written about the director, Sugathapala Senarath Yapa. This may be because Yapa never directed a feature film again. He had his reasons for not doing so. The critical fraternity, long wooed over by what directors like Lester James Peries were doing in the Sinhala cinema, were beginning to turn and rebel against them. Like the Cahiers du Cinema critics in France, they were not disposed towards directors they associated with classical films: what they called “le cinéma de papa”, or “daddy’s cinema.” At the screening of Dharmasena Pathiraja’s Ahas Gawwa, a group of critics distributed pamphlets directed at, and against, Peries: following their French counterparts, they termed the latter’s conception of the cinema “Apochchige Cinemawa.” Yapa became one of their targets.

Sugathapala Senarath Yapa was born in Akuressa in 1935. Both his parents died when he was young. He would be brought up by his grandmother, a “generous woman” as he remembered her for me. His childhood, he recalled, had been rather boisterous, amounting to a series of misadventures which frequently landed him in trouble. These misadventures reached their peak when together with a friend of his called Abeywickrama, Yapa spread a rumour around his first school, Rakvana Maha Vidyalaya, that the buns served to children during the interval contained worms. The outcry this provoked and the discovery of the two culprits who had spread the rumour led to Senarath Yapa being expelled. Out of one school, he managed to get into another, Pelmadulla Central College some miles away.

Pelmadulla Central had been headed by a stern but well-meaning principal, A. V. Gunapala. A member of the Hela Havula, Gunapala had just one message for young Yapa: stick to your studies, don’t indulge in antics. Heeding Gunapala’s message, Yapa managed to get through his SSC Preparatory Exams. However, the school he had applied for to do his SSC Exams, St Anthony’s College, rejected him. The Rector at St Anthony’s, “one Father Moses”, told him to wait for another year. “I didn’t want to wait that long. I would have wasted time getting into all kinds of mischief and into fights with boys my age.” Having abandoned his hopes for a career in the civil service, Yapa ultimately decided to let go of his studies.

At the time cinema halls were limited to the cities. Villages like Akuressa and Rakvana, on the other hand, had to do with “moving theatres”, which were essentially makeshift camps. These would screen the popular attractions of the day: Bollywood romances and Hollywood thrillers. Yapa made his way to these theatres: “I got to watch the entire Zorro series there.” His first job was as a movie title painter for one of the many touring theatres. Having seen his work, the owner of the hall, the MP Reggie Perera, asked him to pay visit. When he met Yapa, Perera offered him a better job: “as a kind of advertiser for the company.” This would be followed by another more lucrative job: as a counter clerk at a touring cinema owned by a distant cousin, “the comedian L. M. Perera.” It was while at this job that Senarath Yapa did his clerical exams, passed them, and began work at the Labour Department.

Offering a more stable and lucrative career, the Labour Department encouraged Yapa to get more fully and actively involved in the arts, starting off with a series of radio drama that included a translation of Tagore’s Gitanjali. His stint at the radio service a few years later got him to meet Mahagama Sekara. The radio service also helped Yapa land a role in a newly established drama troupe. Headed by G. D. L. Perera, the troupe was called Kala Pela. The role was not in a play as Yapa had expected, but in a film: Perera’s debut, the searing and beautifully poignant Sama, which also marked the debuts of Denawaka Hamine and Leonie Kothalawala. Sama would win a number of awards, locally and internationally.

Senarath Yapa wound up as the Secretary and Treasurer of Kala Pela. Later he left the group, determined to carve his own path. In his first few years at the Labour Department, he had made it a habit to visit the British Council, to watch films and read books about the cinema, to brush up his knowledge of Western culture. “I wanted to get away from what I had been watching and savouring at the touring theatres.” He could not have picked on a better time and era to transition from the one to the other: the 1950s, when he was at the prime of his youth, was when exciting new strides were being made in the Japanese, Indian, and even Sri Lankan cinema, with Satyajit Ray and Akira Kurosawa taking the lead.

Recalling the films he saw and the books he read, Yapa had this to tell me”

“What I understood about the cinema, from what I watched and came across back then, was that art is not always about action. A good film is built not just on what characters say and do, but what they hide from other characters. Two films that inspired me in this regard were Vittoria de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves and Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Bicycle Thieves is about a father who can’t bear to tell his son that he is trying to steal a bicycle for him. Rashomon is about a group of people who have got involved with a murder, who can’t come out and tell us what really happened. Not even the dead Samurai can speak the truth.”

Interview with Sugathapala Senarath Yapa, December 21, 2015

Good art, in other words, revealed as much as it concealed, and in the movies and plays he saw, the characters, even the heroes, hid their intentions from one another. This aspect surfaced more sharply in the 1960s, with the arrival of a new generation of directors in the West, particularly in Europe. Two films in particular epitomised this trend: Antonioni’s Blow-Up and Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water. Having seen Knife in the Water, Sugathapala Senarath Yapa finally decided to make his own film. In it he combined three stories: not just Polanski’s and Kurosawa’s films, but also Sarachchandra’s Maname.

Because the story revolved around a woman whose intentions and desires are never clear, Yapa asked the lead actress, Swarna Mallawarachchi, “to watch My Fair Lady and model herself on Audrey Hepburn’s performance.” There is a point in the story, in fact, where the male characters jokily taunt Mallawarchchi for being a “fair lady.” What this showed clearly was a director who wanted everything to be pitch-perfect, a director who wanted his work to reflect his own love for the cinema. In this Yapa differed very little from Lester James and Sumitra Peries, except probably in the circumstances from which he hailed: unlike the latter, he came from an altogether less affluent and privileged background.

Perhaps, it was these circumstances that, tragically, prevented him from moving into what could have been a promising career. “I was soon among the directors attacked by critics who felt their conception of the cinema was the only one that mattered.” While the two Perieses could bear the brunt of these attacks, Yapa found himself increasingly side-lined and ostracised, to a point where he had to limit himself to the Government Film Unit. At the GFU, he revealed his talents once again: his debt documentary (really a docudrama), Minisa saha Kaputa, won the Silver Peacock at the New Delhi Film Festival. Like Peter Bogdanovich and William Friedkin, however, Senarath Yapa was pushed to making lesser works: his next two films, Pembara Madu and the much better Induta Mal Mitak, are deeply commercialist in their outlook. At the GFU, meanwhile, he directed 28 documentaries.

Despite his less than memorable encounter with radical left-wing film critics and directors, Yapa holds those who demand a greater and superior conception of the cinema in high regard. “Today, films have become an extension of fantasies, of dreams,” he told me, as we wrapped up our interview. This may seem like an unfair judgement – aren’t all films, at the end of the day, extensions of dreams? – yet viewed from a certain angle, there is really no denying that the commercial cinema, while sustaining the industry, has fallen far short of the production and aesthetic values which epitomise it in countries like India. I sense some bitterness in Yapa’s recollections of the past, but this is only to be expected: no one who has seen Hanthane Kathawa can fail to be entranced by its romantic sweep. This is a movie that should have heralded a brilliant career. That it did not is utterly saddening.

The writer is an international relations analyst, researcher, and columnist who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com

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Features

Rebuilding the country requires consultation

Published

15 hours ago

2026/01/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

A positive feature of the government that is emerging is its responsiveness to public opinion. The manner in which it has been responding to the furore over the Grade 6 English Reader, in which a weblink to a gay dating site was inserted, has been constructive. Government leaders have taken pains to explain the mishap and reassure everyone concerned that it was not meant to be there and would be removed. They have been meeting religious prelates, educationists and community leaders. In a context where public trust in institutions has been badly eroded over many years, such responsiveness matters. It signals that the government sees itself as accountable to society, including to parents, teachers, and those concerned about the values transmitted through the school system.

This incident also appears to have strengthened unity within the government. The attempt by some opposition politicians and gender misogynists to pin responsibility for this lapse on Prime Minister Dr Harini Amarasuriya, who is also the Minister of Education, has prompted other senior members of the government to come to her defence. This is contrary to speculation that the powerful JVP component of the government is unhappy with the prime minister. More importantly, it demonstrates an understanding within the government that individual ministers should not be scapegoated for systemic shortcomings. Effective governance depends on collective responsibility and solidarity within the leadership, especially during moments of public controversy.

The continuing important role of the prime minister in the government is evident in her meetings with international dignitaries and also in addressing the general public. Last week she chaired the inaugural meeting of the Presidential Task Force to Rebuild Sri Lanka in the aftermath of Cyclone Ditwah. The composition of the task force once again reflects the responsiveness of the government to public opinion. Unlike previous mechanisms set up by governments, which were either all male or without ethnic minority representation, this one includes both, and also includes civil society representation. Decision-making bodies in which there is diversity are more likely to command public legitimacy.

Task Force

The Presidential Task Force to Rebuild Sri Lanka overlooks eight committees to manage different aspects of the recovery, each headed by a sector minister. These committees will focus on Needs Assessment, Restoration of Public Infrastructure, Housing, Local Economies and Livelihoods, Social Infrastructure, Finance and Funding, Data and Information Systems, and Public Communication. This structure appears comprehensive and well designed. However, experience from post-disaster reconstruction in countries such as Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami suggests that institutional design alone does not guarantee success. What matters equally is how far these committees engage with those on the ground and remain open to feedback that may complicate, slow down, or even challenge initial plans.

An option that the task force might wish to consider is to develop a linkage with civil society groups with expertise in the areas that the task force is expected to work. The CSO Collective for Emergency Relief has set up several committees that could be linked to the committees supervised by the task force. Such linkages would not weaken the government’s authority but strengthen it by grounding policy in lived realities. Recent findings emphasise the idea of “co-production”, where state and society jointly shape solutions in which sustainable outcomes often emerge when communities are treated not as passive beneficiaries but as partners in problem-solving.

Cyclone Ditwah destroyed more than physical infrastructure. It also destroyed communities. Some were swallowed by landslides and floods, while many others will need to be moved from their homes as they live in areas vulnerable to future disasters. The trauma of displacement is not merely material but social and psychological. Moving communities to new locations requires careful planning. It is not simply a matter of providing people with houses. They need to be relocated to locations and in a manner that permits communities to live together and to have livelihoods. This will require consultation with those who are displaced. Post-disaster evaluations have acknowledged that relocation schemes imposed without community consent often fail, leading to abandonment of new settlements or the emergence of new forms of marginalisation. Even today, abandoned tsunami housing is to be seen in various places that were affected by the 2004 tsunami.

Malaiyaha Tamils

The large-scale reconstruction that needs to take place in parts of the country most severely affected by Cyclone Ditwah also brings an opportunity to deal with the special problems of the Malaiyaha Tamil population. These are people of recent Indian origin who were unjustly treated at the time of Independence and denied rights of citizenship such as land ownership and the vote. This has been a festering problem and a blot on the conscience of the country. The need to resettle people living in those parts of the hill country which are vulnerable to landslides is an opportunity to do justice by the Malaiyaha Tamil community. Technocratic solutions such as high-rise apartments or English-style townhouses that have or are being contemplated may be cost-effective, but may also be culturally inappropriate and socially disruptive. The task is not simply to build houses but to rebuild communities.

The resettlement of people who have lost their homes and communities requires consultation with them. In the same manner, the education reform programme, of which the textbook controversy is only a small part, too needs to be discussed with concerned stakeholders including school teachers and university faculty. Opening up for discussion does not mean giving up one’s own position or values. Rather, it means recognising that better solutions emerge when different perspectives are heard and negotiated. Consultation takes time and can be frustrating, particularly in contexts of crisis where pressure for quick results is intense. However, solutions developed with stakeholder participation are more resilient and less costly in the long run.

Rebuilding after Cyclone Ditwah, addressing historical injustices faced by the Malaiyaha Tamil community, advancing education reform, changing the electoral system to hold provincial elections without further delay and other challenges facing the government, including national reconciliation, all require dialogue across differences and patience with disagreement. Opening up for discussion is not to give up on one’s own position or values, but to listen, to learn, and to arrive at solutions that have wider acceptance. Consultation needs to be treated as an investment in sustainability and legitimacy and not as an obstacle to rapid decisionmaking. Addressing the problems together, especially engagement with affected parties and those who work with them, offers the best chance of rebuilding not only physical infrastructure but also trust between the government and people in the year ahead.

by Jehan Perera

Features

PSTA: Terrorism without terror continues

Published

15 hours ago

2026/01/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

When the government appointed a committee, led by Rienzie Arsekularatne, Senior President’s Counsel, to draft a new law to replace the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), as promised by the ruling NPP, the writer, in an article published in this journal in July 2025, expressed optimism that, given Arsekularatne’s experience in criminal justice, he would be able to address issues from the perspectives of the State, criminal justice, human rights, suspects, accused, activists, and victims. The draft Protection of the State from Terrorism Act (PSTA), produced by the Committee, has been sharply criticised by individuals and organisations who expected a better outcome that aligns with modern criminal justice and human rights principles.

This article is limited to a discussion of the definition of terrorism. As the writer explained previously, the dangers of an overly broad definition go beyond conviction and increased punishment. Special laws on terrorism allow deviations from standard laws in areas such as preventive detention, arrest, administrative detention, restrictions on judicial decisions regarding bail, lengthy pre-trial detention, the use of confessions, superadded punishments, such as confiscation of property and cancellation of professional licences, banning organisations, and restrictions on publications, among others. The misuse of such laws is not uncommon. Drastic legislation, such as the PTA and emergency regulations, although intended to be used to curb intense violence and deal with emergencies, has been exploited to suppress political opposition.

International Standards

The writer’s basic premise is that, for an act to come within the definition of terrorism, it must either involve “terror” or a “state of intense or overwhelming fear” or be committed to achieve an objective of an individual or organisation that uses “terror” or a “state of intense or overwhelming fear” to realise its aims. The UN General Assembly has accepted that the threshold for a possible general offence of terrorism is the provocation of “a state of terror” (Resolution 60/43). The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has taken a similar view, using the phrase “to create a climate of terror.”

In his 2023 report on the implementation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, the Secretary-General warned that vague and overly broad definitions of terrorism in domestic law, often lacking adequate safeguards, violate the principle of legality under international human rights law. He noted that such laws lead to heavy-handed, ineffective, and counterproductive counter-terrorism practices and are frequently misused to target civil society actors and human rights defenders by labelling them as terrorists to obstruct their work.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has stressed in its Handbook on Criminal Justice Responses to Terrorism that definitions of terrorist acts must use precise and unambiguous language, narrowly define punishable conduct and clearly distinguish it from non-punishable behaviour or offences subject to other penalties. The handbook was developed over several months by a team of international experts, including the writer, and was finalised at a workshop in Vienna.

Anti-Terrorism Bill, 2023

A five-member Bench of the Supreme Court that examined the Anti-Terrorism Bill, 2023, agreed with the petitioners that the definition of terrorism in the Bill was too broad and infringed Article 12(1) of the Constitution, and recommended that an exemption (“carve out”) similar to that used in New Zealand under which “the fact that a person engages in any protest, advocacy, or dissent, or engages in any strike, lockout, or other industrial action, is not, by itself, a sufficient basis for inferring that the person” committed the wrongful acts that would otherwise constitute terrorism.

While recognising the Court’s finding that the definition was too broad, the writer argued, in his previous article, that the political, administrative, and law enforcement cultures of the country concerned are crucial factors to consider. Countries such as New Zealand are well ahead of developing nations, where the risk of misuse is higher, and, therefore, definitions should be narrower, with broader and more precise exemptions. How such a “carve out” would play out in practice is uncertain.

In the Supreme Court, it was submitted that for an act to constitute an offence, under a special law on terrorism, there must be terror unleashed in the commission of the act, or it must be carried out in pursuance of the object of an organisation that uses terror to achieve its objectives. In general, only acts that aim at creating “terror” or a “state of intense or overwhelming fear” should come under the definition of terrorism. There can be terrorism-related acts without violence, for example, when a member of an extremist organisation remotely sabotages an electronic, automated or computerised system in pursuance of the organisation’s goal. But when the same act is committed by, say, a whizz-kid without such a connection, that would be illegal and should be punished, but not under a special law on terrorism. In its determination of the Bill, the Court did not address this submission.

PSTA Proposal

Proposed section 3(1) of the PSTA reads:

Any person who, intentionally or knowingly, commits any act which causes a consequence specified in subsection (2), for the purpose of-

(a) provoking a state of terror;

(b) intimidating the public or any section of the public;

(c) compelling the Government of Sri Lanka, or any other Government, or an international organisation, to do or to abstain from doing any act; or

(d) propagating war, or violating territorial integrity or infringing the sovereignty of Sri Lanka or any other sovereign country, commits the offence of terrorism.

The consequences listed in sub-section (2) include: death; hurt; hostage-taking; abduction or kidnapping; serious damage to any place of public use, any public property, any public or private transportation system or any infrastructure facility or environment; robbery, extortion or theft of public or private property; serious risk to the health and safety of the public or a section of the public; serious obstruction or damage to, or interference with, any electronic or automated or computerised system or network or cyber environment of domains assigned to, or websites registered with such domains assigned to Sri Lanka; destruction of, or serious damage to, religious or cultural property; serious obstruction or damage to, or interference with any electronic, analogue, digital or other wire-linked or wireless transmission system, including signal transmission and any other frequency-based transmission system; without lawful authority, importing, exporting, manufacturing, collecting, obtaining, supplying, trafficking, possessing or using firearms, offensive weapons, ammunition, explosives, articles or things used in the manufacture of explosives or combustible or corrosive substances and biological, chemical, electric, electronic or nuclear weapons, other nuclear explosive devices, nuclear material, radioactive substances, or radiation-emitting devices.

Under section 3(5), “any person who commits an act which constitutes an offence under the nine international treaties on terrorism, ratified by Sri Lanka, also commits the offence of terrorism.” No one would contest that.

The New Zealand “carve-out” is found in sub-section (4): “The fact that a person engages in any protest, advocacy or dissent or engages in any strike, lockout or other industrial action, is not by itself a sufficient basis for inferring that such person (a) commits or attempts, abets, conspires, or prepares to commit the act with the intention or knowledge specified in subsection (1); or (b) is intending to cause or knowingly causes an outcome specified in subsection (2).”

While the Arsekularatne Committee has proposed, including the New Zealand “carve out”, it has ignored a crucial qualification in section 5(2) of that country’s Terrorism Suppression Act, that for an act to be considered a terrorist act, it must be carried out for one or more purposes that are or include advancing “an ideological, political, or religious cause”, with the intention of either intimidating a population or coercing or forcing a government or an international organisation to do or abstain from doing any act.

When the Committee was appointed, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka opined that any new offence with respect to “terrorism” should contain a specific and narrow definition of terrorism, such as the following: “Any person who by the use of force or violence unlawfully targets the civilian population or a segment of the civilian population with the intent to spread fear among such population or segment thereof in furtherance of a political, ideological, or religious cause commits the offence of terrorism”.

The writer submits that, rather than bringing in the requirement of “a political, ideological, or religious cause”, it would be prudent to qualify proposed section 3(1) by the requirement that only acts that aim at creating “terror” or a “state of intense or overwhelming fear” or are carried out to achieve a goal of an individual or organisation that employs “terror” or a “state of intense or overwhelming fear” to attain its objectives should come under the definition of terrorism. Such a threshold is recognised internationally; no “carve out” is then needed, and the concerns of the Human Rights Commission would also be addressed.

by Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne
President’s Counsel

Features

ROCK meets REGGAE 2026

Published

15 hours ago

2026/01/13

Sahan Weerasooriya

JAYASRI: From Vienna, Austria

We generally have in our midst the famous JAYASRI twins, Rohitha and Rohan, who are based in Austria but make it a point to entertain their fans in Sri Lanka on a regular basis.

Well, rock and reggae fans get ready for a major happening on 28th February (Oops, a special day where I’m concerned!) as the much-awaited ROCK meets REGGAE event booms into action at the Nelum Pokuna outdoor theatre.

It was seven years ago, in 2019, that the last ROCK meets REGGAE concert was held in Colombo, and then the Covid scene cropped up.

Chitral Somapala with BLACK MAJESTY

This year’s event will feature our rock star Chitral Somapala with the Australian Rock+Metal band BLACK MAJESTY, and the reggae twins Rohitha and Rohan Jayalath with the original JAYASRI – the full band, with seven members from Vienna, Austria.

According to Rohitha, the JAYASRI outfit is enthusiastically looking forward to entertaining music lovers here with their brand of music.

Their playlist for 28th February will consist of the songs they do at festivals in Europe, as well as originals, and also English and Sinhala hits, and selected covers.

Says Rohitha: “We have put up a great team, here in Sri Lanka, to give this event an international setting and maintain high standards, and this will be a great experience for our Sri Lankan music lovers … not only for Rock and Reggae fans. Yes, there will be some opening acts, and many surprises, as well.”

Rohitha, Chitral and Rohan: Big scene at ROCK meets REGGAE

Rohitha and Rohan also conveyed their love and festive blessings to everyone in Sri Lanka, stating “This Christmas was different as our country faced a catastrophic situation and, indeed, it’s a great time to help and share the real love of Jesus Christ by helping the poor, the needy and the homeless people. Let’s RISE UP as a great nation in 2026.”