Kala Keerthi Sumitra Peries was a Sri Lankan filmmaker.
17 Facts About Sumitra Peries
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Sumitra Peries was the first female film director from Sri Lanka, and was known as the "Poetess of Sinhala Cinema".
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Sumitra Peries held the post of Sri Lanka's ambassador to France, Spain and the United Nations in the late 1990s.
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Sumitra Peries was married to the most prolific Sri Lankan film director Dr Lester James Peries.
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Sumitra Peries's father, Henry Gunawardena was a proctor in Avissawella, and brother of the famous politicians Philip Gunawardena and Robert Gunawardena and her mother, Harriette Wickramasinghe was from a middle-class family.
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When Sumitra Peries was just 14 years of age, her mother died.
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Sumitra Peries began her education in Avissawella, then later enrolled to Visakha Vidyalaya in Colombo and finally joined the Aquinas College Colombo to do the London Advanced Level.
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At the age of 20 Sumitra Peries managed to find some money and travelled to Europe by ship to meet her elder brother Gamini.
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Sumitra Peries was to build her own career there, although she didn't know it at the time.
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Sumitra Peries studied filmmaking at the London School of Film Technique and was awarded a Diploma in Film Direction and Production.
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Sumitra Peries was the only woman studying this subject there at that time.
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Lester agreed and Sumitra Peries started work as assistant director in his second film Sandesaya.
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Sumitra Peries started off her own cinema director debut with her first film Gehenu Lamai featuring newly discovered talent in the young Vasanthi Chathurani.
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Sumitra Peries has subsequently directed many more feature films which have all been subjected to international acclaim.
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Sumitra Peries won the award for the best film director in fifty years of Sri Lankan cinema.
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Lester and Sumithra Sumitra Peries celebrated their Golden wedding anniversary on 19 June 2014 and lived happily in the comfort of their home located down the road named after Dr Lester James Sumitra Peries.
17.
The Lester James Peries and Sumitra Peries foundation was inaugurated on Thursday 9 June 2011 at the BMICH with an oration by the chief Guest - celebrated Indian film-maker Padma Vibushan Dr Adoor Gopalakrishnan and the Speaker of Parliament Chamal Rajapakse was the Guest of Honour.