Sunday, 10 Sep 2023
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By Uditha Devapriya
It is customary for students to wax eloquent about their teachers, not so for teachers to rattle on about their students. Strictly speaking, I am no teacher. But over the years, through my writing particularly, I have met several young people, many of whom I have interviewed and most of whom I have been in touch with. Some have lost contact over the years, others not so....
Tribute to iconic Exorcist director, William Friedkin:
When I was 15 or 16, my mother insisted that I watch The Exorcist. It didn’t seem unusual to me then, but it does now. The Exorcist is just about the most violent and audacious horror film to have come out of the counterculture era. My mother had seen it as a very young girl herself, accompanied by an elder cousin, in the 1970s. The film had been censored in the country,...
George Keyt, whose 30th death anniversary fell on July 31, was easily Sri Lanka’s most distinctive, popular, and recognisable artist. In a career spanning 70 years he exhibited across Sri Lanka, India, Asia, and Europe. His fame eclipsed that of his colleagues in the 43 Group, barring perhaps Justin Däraniyagala, whose work remains more elusive. Indeed, the great John...
The Archaeology Department officials who accosted us at the Maduwanwela Walawwa in Kolonne last year showed us the Delft tiles at the entrance and pointed us to a likeness of Queen Victoria near the inner courtyard, and suggested that these revealed the Dissave’s resistance to colonialism.
It seemed difficult to come to another conclusion. Who, after all, would want to...
The Buddhist temples of the Southern Province, in particular those going back to the late 19th century, display a uniquely fascinating style. They cannot be viewed in isolation from the Kandyan temples, though as Senake Bandaranayake has noted, it is difficult to ascertain or conclude whether they were an offshoot of the Kandyan Period, or whether they were merely...
By Uditha Devapriya
In more senses than one, I grew up with Nanda Malini. Taking the bus from Kadawatha to Moratuwa the other day, I realised how...
The 23 Ivan Peries paintings exhibited at Gallery FourLife in June, as part of a retrospective on the man, constitute a general...
Watching Gaadi for the second time last Wednesday, I realised how deficient Sri Lankan historical films generally are. Gaadi is a...