Ranmihitenna Tele Cinema Park :

The biggest investment for cinema

by Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

Equipped with state of Art technology, Mahinda Rajapaksa National Tele Cinema Park in Ranmihitenna which President Mahinda Rajapaksa opened is the biggest that the Government made for local cinema and tele-drama industry. The location locality is made up of state of art studios, libraries, swimming pools, restaurants and residential facilities for a large number of crew to carry out their shooting simultaneously. The facility enables local cinema and teledrama industry to compete in international movie market and would be a location locality for even foreign location seekers when the international airport and harbour built in Hambantota.

The Ranmihitenna Tele Cinema part is a part of the ambitious project under the Mahinda Chinthanaya to make Sri Lanka the Miracle of Asia. The Mahinda Rajapaksa National Tele-Cinema Park is constructed in three stages in a landmass of 235 acres. The first stage of construction commenced in October 2008 was completed at a cost of 600 million rupees. The total cost is estimated at 2 billion rupees.

The Tele-cinema Park is made up of an administration building, accommodation hall with facilities for 96 individuals, a large studio of the size of 130 X 70 feet, 31 sets, three showrooms for costumes, two seminar halls, two libraries, kitchens, the back lots, workshops, common facilities, and the garden decoration.

The Village is close to the Yala National Park and contains lands with panoramic views and vistas and water reservoir of 40 acres. One of the special features of the park is that artist could make their creations under one roof confining to international standards with a low cost of production.

A major of share of funding for the construction was collected from the tax- on foreign teledramas. The facility would reduce the present high cost of production which is adversely affecting the industry. In addition, it can be promoted as location facility for the production of multi-million foreign films in Sri Lanka in a bid to promote Sri Lanka as a country ideal for film locations. Since the National Tele-Cinema Park is located in an area which is closed to wildlife sanctuaries, water reservoirs, sea and semi-desert like landscapes in Hambantota, it provides ideal film location perspectives for even low cost international productions.