Director: Sumitra Peries
Screenplay: Simon Nawagattegama
Cinematographer: Donald Karunaratna
Editor: Lal Piyasena
Music: W.D. Amaradewa
Cast: Swarna Mallwarachchi, Ravindra Randeniya, Sunethra Sarachchandra, H.A. Perera, Susit Chaminda de Silva, Rasik Wickramasinghe
Production: Harsha Kumara Navaratna
Contact: National Film Corporation of Sri Lanka
Year: 1988
DCP, Color, 111 min, OV Cinghalese with English and French electronic subtitles
Unreleased
With kind support of National Film Corporation of Sri Lanka
Life is harsh for little Bindu after his father’s sudden death. His once lively mother becomes more and more depressive. She neglects her son and acts very mean with close relatives and other villagers. The only person left for the boy is childhood-friend Midya, daughter of the village’s merchant; but when persisting rumors pretend a relationship between Bindu’s mother and Midya’s father, the boy is completely on his own. Desperate, he starts writing letters on the sand.
Adapted from the eponymous novel of one of the biggest authors of Sinhalese’s modern literature, Simon Nawagattegama (1940-2005), A Letter written on the Sand is one of Sumitra Peries’s most touching and most personal movies. Spouse of Sri Lanka’s father of Cinema, Lester James Peries, Miss Peries is also Sri Lanka’s sole female director.
