Film location magazine brands Sri Lanka the best spot

by Shirajiv SIRIMANE

The world's leading film location magazine, The location guide has paid special attention to Sri Lanka's potential as a major film location venue in it its latest issue, giving valuable exposure to the country.

The magazine with 2,000 approved contacts and available in 160 countries has gone out of its way and given a special write-up on Sri Lanka's bio diversity and recourses available for the film industry.

While facilities available in other countries have been placed in alphabetical order Sri Lanka has been featured in the magazine's first 15 pages and again, featured towards the end section of the 610-page magazine.

It has also made special remarks such as 'When you visit Sri Lanka it is plain to see why two of the world's best known directors chose it as a location'.

The magazine has also pointed out that the fact that majority of the people speak and understand English, the other advantage being that there is virtually no red tape involved while shooting films in Sri Lanka.

The magazine ends the first article saying that the country justifies its name 'Pearl of the Indian Ocean' and could be named as the best country to shoot films in the region, which is a great compliment for the country.

The magazine also speaks of famous Sri Lanka architect, Geoffrey Bawa and also speaks of a rich bio diversity of the country.

It also highlights Bundala National Park, Nilaweli Beach, Arugam Bay, the tea plantations and Point Pedro.

The Ambassador for Sri Lanka in USA, Jaliya Wickramasuriya speaking to the Sunday Observer said that Murray Ashton, founder of the magazine had travelled extensively in Sri Lanka before publishing the magazine.

He also said that the construction of the Ranmihitenna cinema village too would help Sri Lanka to market itself as a film destination more aggressively.

"Even in the US most of the scenes are shot indoors as it's very expensive to shoot outdoors," he explained.

If a film crew uses Ranmihitenna, they could travel for another 10 minutes for take a beach scene, travel another half hour, visit Yala and the jungles. "The crew also has residential facilities and also studio and editing facilities which make it a superior location than some of the USA film studios", he said.