Australian producer seeks Sri Lankan songwriters for feature film

Writer, producer and director Surith Fernando (centre, in black peaked cap looking towards camera) on the set of ‘An Orange and the Eye’

An Australian film producer of Sri Lankan origin is seeking songwriters from Sri Lanka for the soundtrack of his new movie called ‘The Naked Eye’.

Surith Fernando, who started as a child-actor in Sri Lanka and worked as a producer for Rupavahini, the State-television broadcaster, before moving to Sydney, wants to track down music composers for English songs.

His planned new film, ‘The Naked Eye’, will be set in Sri Lanka, with the main creative team also from the island and main characters played by Sri Lankan and Australian actors.

“My main intention is to find a couple of new song composers in order to compose songs in English. We are aiming for an international audience,” said Fernando, who has developed documentaries for both Australian broadcasters ABC and SBS.

Fernando has also worked as an assistant director on short films and made his own short films. 

His latest venture, which he calls his “warm-up”, is a short film called ‘An Orange And The Eye’ and is on film festivals at the moment.

‘An Orange And The Eye’, done with real people, not professional actors, can be seen on the link https://vimeo.com/646340386 (Password - AnOrangeEye2021)

“I look forward to sharing my cinematic statement with the audience worldwide to celebrate our human spirit,” says Fernando. “I have left it to the audience to get to know a little bit of the human nature of the two characters in our film. They are not actors but real people in our society.”

Currently, he is developing ‘The Naked Eye’ and ‘The Owl Hunt’, a low budget feature film set in Australia.

‘The Naked Eye’ is Fernando’s first feature film, a musical in the English language, set in Sri Lanka.

Its principal creative team is from Sri Lanka for music, choreography and production design, with Fernando as the writer and director.

“I have not completed selecting my cast and crew from Sri Lanka and these days  I am on the look for creative talent,” he said.

Fernando began his career as a child actor in Sri Lanka, with numerous roles in theatre and radio drama. He was selected by Rupavahini Corporation for a three-year producer traineeship.

He was granted a three-month release to write and direct a successful youth production, a musical drama called ‘Vyanga’ for Ceylon Theatres Ltd.

“I developed my musical style and passion while directing my first stage play ‘Yyanga’ for Ceylon Theatres in 1985,” Fernando said.

On completing the three-year traineeship, he was permanently employed as a producer by Rupavahini where he produced numerous studio and outside broadcasting productions for public broadcast.

In 1989 Fernando won a producer’s scholarship in TV broadcasting and arrived in Sydney to study film and TV at the Australian national academy, Australian Film, Television Radio School.

A writer, producer and director, Fernando likes to describe himself with the words, «English is my second language. Imagery is my first.»

A still from Fernando’s film ‘An Orange and the Eye’