13 Facts About Tissa Abeysekara

Deshabandu Tissa Ananda Abeysekara was a Sri Lankan filmmaker, actor, writer, director, screen playwright and political activist.

Tissa Abeysekara is better known as a script writer for the cinema as well as a film director.

Tissa Abeysekara was the chief coordinator of FOSWAL in Sri Lanka and honoured awardee of SAARC Literary Award.

Tissa Abeysekara grew up in his ancestral house, Greenlands in Havelock Town, Colombo.

Tissa Abeysekara's father was cousins with the late Sir Susantha de Fonseka who was Tissa Abeysekara's Godfather.

Tissa Abeysekara was married to Asanka Monarvilla and the couple have one daughter Svetlana, and one son, Dimitra.

Tissa Abeysekara died on 18 April 2009, at Colombo National Hospital after having been admitted for a heart condition.

Tissa Abeysekara received co-credit for most of Peries's films, following the screenplay he wrote for Welikatara, Tissa was launched into the world of scriptwriting and recognized as Sri Lanka's foremost screenplay, dialogue and scriptwriter.

Tissa Abeysekara received the Presidential Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1978 for the five minutes role as "Kudapola Thero" in the blockbuster film Veera Puran Appu.

Tissa Abeysekara continued writing mostly in English, bringing out another collection of three stories, In My Kingdom of the Sun and the Holy Peak.

Tissa Abeysekara was chairman of the National Film Corporation from 1999 to 2001.

Tissa Abeysekara was the director of the Sri Lanka Television Training Institute.

Tissa Abeysekara served on the Boards of the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation and the Aesthetic Institute of Sri Lanka, affiliated to the University of Kelaniya, as a council member of the University of Visual and Performing Arts, Colombo, and as a trustee of the National Heritage Trust of Sri Lanka.