BIOGRAPHY
Sanjeewa Pushpakumara was born in 1977 and hails from the poverty stricken and war-battered, Eastern province of Sri Lanka, where he grew up among violent raids against Tamil, Sinhala and Muslim villagers, marching army, and gunfire of the guerrillas, sometimes finding refuge in camps for the internally displaced.
Sanjeewa came to the capital Colombo at the age of 18, and managed to become a presenter for a FM radio channel. Displeased, he left the job soon to become a free lance news paper journalist where he wrote about film, Drama and other cultural events and mostly contributed to Ravaya news paper, considered to be the pioneer in alternative journalism. Meanwhile he became as a television presenter, a script writer and producer for Sri Lanka Rupavahini Cooperation and Sirasa TV.
Still managing with a stingy means, he completed an Arts Degree from the university of Sri Jayawaredenapura, Sri Lanka in 2005 and in 2008 he obtained Master degree in Mass Communication from University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. In 2005/2006 Sanjeewa pursued a Diploma in Filmmaking from National Film Corporation, Sri Lanka. There he became the batch top. In 2007 He received a Scholarship from Korean Culture and Tourism ministry under its cultural exchange program (CPI), to study filmmaking in the Asian Young Film Forum (Korea) and also to learn Korean language at Chonbuk National University (Korea). Again in 2009 he underwent training in the Asian Film Academy in Korea (a project of Pusan Film Festival).
Sanjeewa made his first short film in 2007 called Touch, which won the Special Jury Prize at Youth New Wave International Film Festival (YNWIFF) in Sri Lanka, 2008. Same year, he shot his second short film, Wings to Fly, the film received official selection at YNWIF. In 2009 he took part in making another short film titled An Encounter in the Wood in Korea as the Production Designer. The film was a collective project of Asian Film Academy.
Sanjeewa has also written and published three books on cinema, namely Athmabadda Cinema Rupa (Prasanna Vithanage’s Cinema) in 2007 which is an analytical book on Prasanna Vithanage’s Cinema. Jump cut ekak (A Jump Cut- cinema from sky to earth) in 2008 which is comprised filmmaking trends and movements such as Dogme and guerilla filmmaking. Korean Cinema and Kim Ki -duk’s film Language was published later in 2009.
In 2010 Sanjeewa directed his debut feature film, Flying Fish. At present Sanjeewa doing his post graduate degree in filmmaking in the Chung – Ang University in South Korea, under the Korean government scholarship programme.
