"I found it very difficult to raise money every film that was made…"

I’ve been… looking back, I have concentrated on one area which is the Sri Lankan, I mean, the Sinhala film. And tried to make good Sinhala films. I mean, that has been set in very simple worlds. Not all of them have been successful. But that has been the major motive in my making films.

I have…the characters true to life, having the stories plausible and at the same time emotional stories which are not sentimental. True stories.

I think… I…making twenty films, one in one in English, I feel I haven’t done enough. I could have done more. But the fact is that commercially I wasn’t back… I found it very difficult to raise money every film that was made… I mean, there was absolutely nothing coming from the state, there was no help… and one had to depend entirely on private sources.

If there was some way…there was a way the Corporation used to give, I think, funding. I think they still do. But we never applied, neither Sumithra my wife nor I ever applied for the funding because we thought it is far better to have private producers because of the…Even though there is no interference, I must say, from the government. You feel inhibited that there is a government funding in there and there are certain things that you should not do. That inhibits you in a certain way in choosing a story and choosing your theme. You wouldn’t do an anti-government film, that’s for sure.

You’re quite free when you’re doing your own thing. And even if the funding is not too generous, you struggle on and try and make the film. I haven’t had any problem at all with the producers. They have quite been happy whether they made money or not, because most of the producers who funded me had money to make a film, not for commercial gain. I mean, they felt that they must make a good film.

So thereby there was no pressure on me to include a song here, a comic act there. And I mean, that never came into the equation at any time. So I was free. And if I made a mistake or made a bad film, it was entirely my own fault… mistake.