"Akasa Kusum" Complete!

Director Prasanna Vithanage as completed post production work on "Akasa Kusum". Vithanage, who returned to Sri Lanka on Wednesday (25 June), took a month to fully arrange and mix the film's soundtrack in Chennai, India. He worked with acclaimed sound designer A. S. Laxmi Narayanan, with whom he worked closely in bringing a rich, realistic soundscape to the story of Sandhya Rani. "Laxmi Narayanan was very patient with me," said Vithanage of his collaboration with the sound designer, with whom he also worked on "Ira Madiyama."

Speaking on his experience with "Akasa Kusum," Vithanage said he had the luxury of time to look back and make clear creative decisions regarding the final movie. "Since we shot the film in three schedules, we had a lot of time to look back and see if we have done any mistake." He added that co-producer and editor Sreekar Prasad attended to minute details, bringing out the best in the final narrative. "For the whole of last month, we made more and more small cuts to the film." The final film now runs at a tight 90 minutes.

He also cited four whose comments were invaluable to him in his final outlook: writer and critic Robert Crusz, Indian cinematographer and director Santosh Sivan, acclaimed Indian film director Mani Ratnam and European producer/director Uberto Pasolini, who all saw early versions of the film and offered their criticisms and advice.

The film is already being sent out to the festival circuit, with Vithanage planning to premiere it in North America, Europe and Asia later this year. He hopes to release the movie in Sri Lanka in early 2009.

"Negative cutting is happening as we speak," he said, adding that he hopes to receive the first print of his new movie on the 20th of July.