
Swarna Mallawarachchi
Acting
Biography
Swarna Mallawarachchi is a Sri Lankan film actress, also known as the "Golden star of Sinhalese cinema". She began her acting career whilst still a schoolgirl - starring in the 1966 released Sinhalese film Sath Samudura directed by Siri Gunasinghe. During a career that spans over 40 years, Swarna has won the 'Best Actress Award' 26 times.
Known For

This film indicated the formation of a cinematic language consisting of hyper-realistic images. The film won the award for Most Promising Director at the Critics' awards in 1994. It was also awarded Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay at the 1998 OCIC awards.
Moon Lady

This European thriller, set in Sri Lanka, attempts to expound upon the philosophical implications of life, death, and memory. JB, an academic famed for his studies of oriental culture and alcoholic who has never recovered from his wife's suicide, returns to Sri Lanka to translate a book written on glass. It is supposed to contain Buddha's discourse upon memory. While he is there, an attractive nurse, Julia asks him to assist a young boy who wants to locate his father who is now living in a Tamil-occupied area. The Tamil terrorists will kill any trespassers. Compounding JB's conflict in deciding to go is that his former home where he lived with his wife is in that area. Unbeknownst to him, the boy is really a Tamil spy.
Crystal Book

The film follows Dr. Manorani Saravanamuttu's relentless pursuit of justice after the tragic abduction and murder of her son, Richard de Zoysa, a journalist, writer, and human rights activist, in 1990.
Rani

When an alluring young undergrad becomes infatuated with her nearly retired professor, she stirs up the man's humdrum home life in a most unusual way.
Let Her Cry

An illiterate and sexually frustrated young man finds himself attracted to a chic woman from the city who has come to his rural village as a school teacher.
Mee Haraka

A woman plots her revenge after being duped by a slick, ruthless man who impregnates her and tries to bail her out of marriage.
The Hunt

Three young men have to face the realities of adult life as they move on from youthful frolicking to battle issues of unemployment, restlessness and the allure of the city. Two of them, Jaye and Gune, unlike their other friend who finds both a job and a wife, have only each other for company, In search of quick and easy money, they fall into hands of a scheming network of underworld figures.They become hustlers and decide to outwit their contact.
One League of Sky

Suwisal has turned 40. He's a forgetful businessman, a philanderer, indifferent to life around him, including his young and lovely fiancée. A visit to the house of his childhood triggers memories that continue to cascade when he is called for jury duty to hear the case against Piyum, a servant he seduced and abandoned 20 years before. Now a prostitute, she is on trial for murder.
Dark Night of the Soul

Three friends embark on a journey to a land that was once forbidden but a sudden encounter forces them to return to yet another land of turmoil and terror.
Thanha Rathi Ranga

Chanchala Reka is a Sri Lankan sinhala film released in 1981.
Chanchala Rekha

Based on the famous novel Thun Man Handiya, this movie demonstrates a fraction of life of a youth who reflects back to his childhood and steps to a new era of life when he moves to the Governmental Art Academy.
Thun Man Handiya

Set in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, Suddi is married to a notorious criminal in the village, Romiel. Convicted for a murder Romiel is jailed. Miserable Suddhi has to depend on Sirimewan Mudalalie, a shrewd businessman from town.
A Woman in a Whirlpool

The story follows a seven-year-old girl from an aristocratic family who is brutally murdered and subsequently reborn in a rural village.
Maya

Dharmesena Pathiraja's only Tamil language film, Ponmani (Younger Sister) is about a starkly different socio-economic culture and political climate. Set in the northern city of Jaffna, it traces the fortunes and concerns of an economically depleted upper caste, lower middle class family. An evocative film about land, women, romance and tragedy, narrated in an idiom of understatement.
Younger Sister

A village woman and her young son face various hardships because of the untimely death of her husband.
Sagara Jalaya Madi Handuwa Oba Handa

Anura, a village youth manages to qualify for university where he discovers a whole new world which threatens his beliefs and values.
Hanthane Kathawa

Sath Samudura is a landmark Sri Lankan film directed by professor Siri Gunasinghe and released in 1967. This film was critically acclaimed and is considered a major work in Sri Lankan cinema. It depicts the plight of fishermen living in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka.
Sath Samudura
A semi-autobiographical account of a move from Sri Lanka to Britain, which explores "being inbetween East/West, mother/father, male/female". The filmmaker was born in Sri Lanka and brought up in the traditions of European culture and Roman Catholicism. He moved to England to live and work, and the film, which combines drama and documentary, is a personal account of his "negotiation of his personal history".
Inbetween

Set during the British colonial reign in Sri Lanka (1905), this powerful drama follows Peduru who descends from a line of traditional drummers, crossing over to three generations. Peduru's struggle for survival in this harsh rural hamlet exposes the repressive Buddhist institutionalization of the locals, and the hierarchical structure backed by the British colonials.
Bawa Duka - The Sorrow of Existence - Part I

A continuation of “Bawa Duka”; via Peduru’s family, the narrative exposes the social stasis/class discrimination encouraged by the local Sinhalese Buddhist clergy, while the arrival of the Christian missionaries signals a more progressive mindset, though at the cost of conversion to a monotheistic faith. Tyranny is not only practiced by the British colonials but equally facilitated by local traditional institutions--thus, the resultant suffering (Duka) of Peduru is a combination of the two.