Siva Sivanandan with late Lester James Peries watching the celebrated film maker autograph his biography during the last visit to Sri Lanka
By Somasiri Munasinghe
The death of Siva Sivanandan, who was associated with the Sri Lankan film industry for more than 30 years, marks the end of an era in the Sinhala cinema. He passed away in Toronto on July 20 at the age of 85.
Siva was the last link of the illustrious group of non-Sinhala filmmakers and producers like K. Gunaratnam, S.M. Nayagam, Jabir A. Cader, Robin Tampoe and W.M.S. Tampoe, who contributed their talent to evolve a national cinema from the Sinhala film industry’s infancy. In fact, one of Siva’s daughters, Sharmila, is married to Ravi Rajan, a grandson of M.S. Nayagam who produced the first Sinhala film, Kadawuna Poronduwa, in 1947.
Siva began his career in Cinemas Limited, owned by late K. Gunaratnam, spearheading the company’s success in the heyday of Sinhala cinema. Though his designation was publicity and distribution manager, he was actively involved in many areas of the company.
He distributed Sinhala, Tamil, English and Hindi films in the Cinemas circuit, which had 113 theatres spread throughout the island, hand picked Sinhala films to be distributed in the Cinemas circuit on a commission basis, chose hit films in Tamil Nadu to be imported to Sri Lanka and attended censure board movie screenings and edited out offensive scenes on the advice of the board. He said there was no nudity in Sinhala films then, and the major offence was the inclusion of dialogues with double meanings to entertain the gallery. The significant offenders were director K.A.W. Perera and scriptwriter Hugo Fernando who built a reputation for witty dialogues.
Siva also adjusted the colours of negatives on a machine changing the digital ratios, and entertained star guests who came to Sri Lanka from India on the invitation of Gunaratnam and drove them around Sri Lanka sight-seeing in his boss’s Mercedes Benz. Some of the top-notch star visitors included M.G. Ramachandran, Gemini Ganeshan and his wife Savithri, B. Saroja Devi and comedian Nagesh.
The most enjoyable part of his job was directing movies, according to Siva. He worked as the first assistant director of Adata Wediya Heta Hondai, Dheewarayo and Udarata Manike and directed his own award-winning film, Obe Dutuda, in 1966. This movie was among the best five films of the year, for which Iranganie Serasinghe won the best actress honours for her character portrayal, at the Sarasaviya film festival. Oba Dutu Da was a huge commercial success with a star-studded cast featuring Gamini Fonseka, Jeevarani Kurukulasooriya and Sandhya Kumari, the celebrated actors of that era.
Oba Dutu Da was one of the hundreds of Sinhala films lost during the senseless violence destroying a part of our cinema history and heritage captured on celluloid. Today, this landmark film is reduced to only a few words on the internet. Siva spoke about his lost film with regret for not keeping a copy at home for safety. The film was loosely based on an English novel, Unshaken Loyalty, written by famous British romance writer Denise Robins.
Siva was a close friend of film stars like Gamini Fonseka, Vijaya Kumaratunga, Sandhya Kumari, Jeevarani Kurukulasooriya, Ananda Jayaratne and directors like Lester James Peiris, his wife Sumithra, Vasantha Obeysekera, H.D. Premarathne and Nihalsinghe. On July 3, 1965, when Siva got married to Rohini the star-studded ceremony included well known film actors including Gamini Fonseka, his wife and Sandhya Kumari.
D.B. Nihalsinghe picked Siva for the post of assistant general manager of the State Film Corporation at its inauguration to be in charge of film importing, publicity and distribution. The veteran film director was impressed with Siva’s promotion skills which he had observed during the release of his iconic Weli Kathra in the Cinemas circuit, partly attributing the popularity of his film to Siva’s publicity skills.
Siva did not want to quit the Cinemas initially to accept the new job, but he did so with the blessing of Gunaratnam, who was moving away from film importing and producing business as the government was in the process of imposing controls on movie imports to encourage local film production. Gunaratnam paid him a bonus of Rs.15,000 when he quit. It was a princely sum those days, and Siva bought a new car for Rs.10,000.
In his State Film Corporation days, Siva was also in charge of approving the permits for foreign crews to shoot movies in Sri Lanka. He met Hollywood luminary Stephen Spielberg in his office when the director came to apply for permission to shoot Indiana Jones and Temple of the Doom in Sri Lanka.
Siva was born in Jaffna and moved to Hatton as a child as his father worked there as a PWD (Public Works Department) overseer. He moved to Galagedera, where his uncle worked as the Controller of Rubber and studied in a Sinhala school. He moved to Jaffna Central for higher studies and entered the Colombo Aquinas College to study for London A-Level.
A fluent speaker of Sinhala, Tamil and English, Siva planned to study law following in the footsteps of his famous uncle, G.G. Ponnambalam. Unfortunately, the law college made it mandatory for the new entrants to have a credit pass in the mother tongue from that year. Siva had a credit for Sinhala and only a simple pass for Tamil! He fondly remembered his Sinhala teacher, Sagara Palansuriya, the well-known poet known as Kayes who taught him Sinhala at Jaffna Central.
After getting through his London AL, he joined the Lever Brothers and cut his teeth there on professional marketing, which became helpful as the distribution manager at the Cinemas.
Siva described his former boss Gunaratnam as a giant of early Sinhala cinema. “He began by dubbing Indian films into Sinhala and produced some well-known films like Sujatha, Radala Piriluwa and Saradam. Despite his penchant for producing commercial hits one after another, he also produced critically acclaimed films like Sandeshaya and Deewarayo,” he told me.
Siva came to Canada with his wife Rohini and three daughters, Sharmila, Radhika and Rekha, in 1984.
Though he was not directly involved in filmmaking in Toronto, movies remained his major passion in life. Vanni Dhanawardane, the former president of the Sinhala Associastion, told me that Siva was toying with the idea of making a film in Canada, but due to his busy banking career, the project failed to materialize. Toronto compere Upali Ranasinghe said Siva bought a high-end video camera, covered community cultural events in Toronto, and worked for a television channel. He also imported Sri Lankan films for public screening in Toronto.
Siva had an extensive library of books and magazines on Sinhala films and paper cuttings and pictures dating back to the early days of the Sinhala and Tamil cinema. He also kept in touch with his colleagues in Sri Lanka and did not forget to meet them whenever he went to Sri Lanka for vacation. During his last holidays, he met director Lester James Peiris and got the filmmaker’s biography autographed. He was a guest of honour at a television award ceremony presentation.
According to his family members, one of Siva’s last wishes was to speak to me from his hospital bed a day before he passed away. To my profound sadness, I never got his telephone call, but I will remember his gesture of lasting friendship for the rest of my life. So Long, Brother Siva, Rest in Peace!
Siva’s funeral was held at the Chapel Ridge Funeral Home on Thursday, July 22, in Markham, Ontario, in accordance with Hindu traditions.
(I interviewed Siva about his experience working under Gunaratnam and the development of the early Sinhala cinema. I hope to write a series of articles based on our discussions in this blog).
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