Lester James Peiris
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Sir Lester James Peiris (born April 05, 1919), one of the pioneers of Sri Lankan cinema, is the director of the globally acclaimed "Rekhava" and also sometimes known as the "Father of Sinhalese Cinema".
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[edit] Early life
Lester James Peiris was born as the second child of Dr. James Francis Peiris, a medical doctor, and Anne Gertrude Winifred Jayasuriya, another educated personality at the time. His family was Roman Catholic, and English was the only language spoken at home. He spent most of his childhood in Dehiwela. His first entry to cinema was made by the 8-mm Kodasco Projector, which ran Charlie Chaplin's silent movies and was gifted to him by his father. Lester schooled at the renowned Peter's College in Colombo and English turned out to be his favourite subject. Thereby, when he was leaving school he decided to pursue a career in journalism. Later he wrote for various columns at Daily News and also worked at Radio Ceylon, the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Cooperation now. In 1947, Lester left Sri Lanka for UK, where his passion for cinema developed. Together with Herwood Janz, he made a couple of experimental films, which were well received by the crowd. As destiny had wanted him to, he was assigned an interesting interview with Ralph Keene, a distinguished English documentary filmmaker, then. In 1964, he married Sumitra Gunawardene, who is also a distinguished directress now.
[edit] Career
In 1956, Lester made his entry in to national cinema with the globally aclaimed "Rekawa", which was a story based on village life. With this he revolutionized Sri Lankan cinema, giving it a unique identity. Afterwards he made many award-winning films such as "Gamperaliya" in 1964 based on Martin Wickramasinghe's famous novel; "Delowak Athara" in 1966; "Golu Hadawatha" in 1968 based on the novel by Karunasena Jayalath; "Nidhanaya" in 1970; "Yuganthaya" in 1983 and many more.
