Last Sunday (December 20, 2015), we showed the movie Zathura: A Space Adventure at Horizon Lanka Foundation, Mahawilachchiya, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. This is a very beautiful movie on a space related plot. It was an adventurous thriller.
“Zathura: A Space Adventure is an American science fiction fantasy adventure film directed by Jon Favreau, and is loosely based on the illustrated book Zathura by Chris Van Allsburg, author of Jumanji. The film stars Josh Hutcherson, Jonah Bobo, Dax Shepard, Kristen Stewart, and Tim Robbins.” – Wikipedia
On Sunday 13, December 2015, we started showing a movie at Horizon Lanka Foundation. This continues every Sunday sharp at 7.00 pm. The movie we select can be enjoyed by all age levels from kids to older people. We show good movies in any language which are subtitled in English for the audience to learn some English too while having fun. Movies are shown free of charge purely on educational (or rather edutainment) purposes. We have a multimedia projector and a screen along with a decent sound system which give the audience a better movie experience. Showing English subtitled movies has been very effective in students getting very good grades at the national level English examinations in the past. Reading English subtitles is a catalyst for the students to venture into reading English language books, etc. too.
It was unanimously agreed to go ahead with the movie schedule even if there is a wedding, a funeral or a religious, etc. event in the village. If these sporadic events are taken for granted, we will hardy have a chance to screen a movie in a village where there is a 22,000-strong population. Visit http://mahawilachchiya.ds.gov.lk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=45&Itemid=57&lang=en for more statistics about Mahawilachchiya. We will cancel the movies only if there is a national catastrophe. (Luckily there hasn’t been any such incident since the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that devastated the coastal belt of Sri Lanka and a few of our neighboring countries.)
