- Titus Thotawatte
Titus Thotawatte (born Emmanuel Titus de Silva on
April 17 ,1929 in Borala) is aSri Lankan director and editor. He has contributed to the development of Sri Lankan children's programming.Thotawatte was born the youngest of three children having two elder sisters. He attended Ananda College in Colombo and studied art under J.D.A. Perera and Stanley Abeysinghe. Subsquently he went to Matara Technical College.
Thottawatte joined
Lester James Peries and Willie Blake in making "Rekava " in 1956 as editor. It was an attempt to make a truly Sinhala movie to contrast with the Southern Indian copies in vogue.Thottawatte struck out as a director with "Chandiya" in 1965. The film starred
Gamini Fonseka in the first anti-hero role of Sinhala Cinema. Other early films include "Kauda Hari" (1969), "Thewatha" (1970) and "Haralaksaya" (1971).In 1980, Thotawatte made the popular children's movie "Handaya" which was adjusted the Best Picture at the Sarasaviya Film Festival. In the 1980s and 1990s, he dubbed English cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Doctor Doolittle into Sinhala to adapt them for Sinhala audiences. These continue to air on Sinhala TV. Thotawatte also created puppet characters like Eluson.
When The National Media Awards took place for the first time in Sri Lankan History, three Gold awards were made to
Veteran journalist D. F. Kariyakarawana for his contribution to newspaper journalism,
Vijaya Corea in honour of his contribution towards the upliftment of Broadcasting media over a long period of time.Titus Thotawatte, the veteran film maker for his contribution to the TV media in Sri Lanka
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
