BIOGRAPHY
NILENDRA DESHAPRIYA
Nilendra Deshapriya born in 1962 studied drama and theatre at school and at the age of fourteen he wrote his first stage play “The Horse Carriage” inspired by the film Rashoman by the legendary Akira Kurosawa which became a huge success. He was an active member of the “group 78” at the Lionel Wendt Theater, a community where the creative elite gathered during his time and produced many theatre productions.
In a career spanning 30 years Nilendra Deshpriya embarked on his journey of filmmaking as an assistant director with highly reputed film directors’ in both local and international productions. He joined the film industry in 1980 with the movie “Regina” by Thilak Lakshman Seneviratne. Few of the landmarks amongst many successful art house productions he worked are; “Siri Medura” (The Mansion) which represented Sri-Lanka at Festival De Nantes& in France in 1983, Keli Madala by DB Nihansinghe which represented Sri Lanka at the Singapore Film festival in 1984. Later Prasanna Vithanage’s “Sisila Gini Gani” (Disappear- ance), Surabidena (A womb for hire) which Participated in Singapore Hawaii International Film festivals and Maruthaya (Storm) which participated in Frighbourg Film festival in Switzerland,
In 1997 Nilendra contributed as Sri Lankan Assistant Director for a BBC television adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s novel “Midnights Children”. Then he joined the Maharaja Organisation to launch its flagship channel Sirasa TV in 1998 as Director Entertainment and then Director of Broadcasting. He produced the first ever Sri Lankan daily soap series in collaboration with Sirasa TV Sri Adhikaari Brothers India. Amongst many other phenomenal productions he was the Sri Lankan Executive Producer of the 27 hour long live broadcast connecting the 5 continents, produced by BBC London and WGBH Boston
Later he rose to become one of Sri Lanka’s most sought after television personalities who introduced the genre Reality TV to Sri Lankan audiences, producing many successful television formats such as Super Star based on singing talent all over the nation which garnered the highest ever television ratings in the history of Sri Lankan television and also the franchised version of Who Wants To be A Millionaire.
“Between Yesterday and Tomorrow” is his directorial debut as a filmmaker.
