Letters & Speeches
Remarks made by Ambassador Blake at the ceremony to hand-over of grant documents of Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Hon. Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Minister of Mass Media & Information; Mr. A. Dissanayake, Secretary to the Ministry of Mass Media & Information; Ms. Sharadha de Saram; Mr. Tissa Abeysekara, honored guests and friends in the media,It gives me great pleasure to launch the 2008 U.S. Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation project for Sri Lanka. This fund was established by the Department of State in 2001 to help developing nations preserve their endangered historic sites and arts. It is an innovative program that emphasizes the preservation of the world’s varied history as an integral part of U.S. foreign relations. By taking a leading role in efforts to preserve cultural heritage, we hope to show our respect for diverse peoples and cultures around the world, and here in Sri Lanka.
Each year, I am asked to nominate a project that works to protect Sri Lanka’s multi-ethnic cultural heritage. Past Ambassador’s cultural funds have contributed more than $40,000 for the Archaeological Documentation of the Western Monasteries at Anuradhapura, and a Survey of Tsunami-affected Cultural Properties Inside the Dutch Fort at Matara.
This year, I chose an unusual project for its recognition of a valuable but more modern form of art and cultural production – the Preservation of Sri Lanka’s Documentary Film Heritage. Film is known as the seventh art, in part because it came after other art forms were already established, but also because it frequently borrows from all of them – oral and written literature, music, dance, photography and visual culture.
Unlike historic buildings, documentary film is not only a cultural heirloom but a powerful tool in educating and raising social consciousness. Film breaks down divides to reach all levels of society, from the highly-educated to the illiterate, from those speaking English, to those speaking Sinhalese or Tamil.
This project will provide a grant of almost $20,000 to document and preserve what is left of the valuable but endangered documentary film collection of the Government Film Unit. The GFU is the only office in the country with a complete archive of all government-produced documentaries in Sri Lanka from the time of independence in 1948 – comprising an archive of over 1500 film and negative reels.
In addition, the project will provide the equipment and expertise to convert one hundred of the most significant films to DVD format. We hope to preserve this rich source of filmed heritage for future generations interested in raising awareness of Sri Lankan life and events following independence. The digitized films and catalogue will be made available to the public – providing a widely accessible link to Sri Lankan cultural life before recent polarization and conflict.
Before television was widely introduced in Sri Lanka the documentaries of the GFU toured the country to spread information about culture and events to rural audiences. This project hopes to revive this practice, encouraging interest in documentary film making through screenings of the digitized collection around the island.
I want to congratulate the Ministry of Mass Media and Information, Project Manager Sharada de Saram and film historian Tissa Abeysekara for recognizing the need to safeguard this unique collection, and wish them success in their work to breath new life into these works. We at the Embassy are proud to play an integral role in this important project.
