Third cinema and Sri Lankan cinema In this essay, I explore the idea third cinema and how

it would apply to contemporary Sri Lankan cinema. In modern context, the term Third Cinema assumes a broader perspective than merely being associated with de-colonisation and nation-building. It is a descriptive as well as a prescriptive concept which goes beyond in practice the historical emergence of Third Cinema in the West, Southeastern, and Eastern Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Pacific-basis in the mid-twentieth century. Third Cinema is a highly ideologically charged and aesthetically meaningful term indicating an espousing of an independent or rather oppositional ideological stance towards commercial genre and auteuristic cinema emerging from metropolitan Western centre. In essence, it is a less geographically definable and more actually moulded by an ideology of ant-imperialistic counterculture movement that emerged in the 1960s. Ideology of cinema According to the ideology of Third Cinema, it recognises the innate power of cinema as a modern medium of communication to spearhead sociopolitical transformation within a nation state and across the continents. Among other things, Third cinema closely associates with socialist concerns such as workers and other oppressed groups emancipation and increasing their democratic access to the media with a commitment to cultural self-determination and artistic innovation. Third Cinema enlightens viewers as it critically confronts the reality while reinterpreting it audiovisual analysis and recognises the circumstances and aspirations of the viewers in the depiction of others struggles. From the perspective of filmmakers and cultural policymakers, Third cinema is engaged with a continuous search for a sustainable and socially relevant mode of artistic expression, particularly, in underdeveloped and politically unstable conditions. At the same time, it strives to promote solidarity among all people who have experienced and continue to grapple with (neo) colonialism with its racists, ethnocentric, classist and sexist underpinnings. Third Cinema addresses territories of national life often neglected by official discourse and industrial or commercial cinema and brings those issues into international limelight. From a broader perspective, Third Cinema can be produced with or without the assistance of the state and by amateurs as well as seasoned professionals. It demands the attention to para-filmic activities and textual content and explores alternative methods of production, distribution and exhibition. Its source of aesthetic inspiration is different to that of the conventional films and virtually redefines the very terms such as professional, mass and Art the way in which they relate to cinema. Origin of third cinema The term "Third Cinema" was coined in an interview with the Argentine Cine Liberacin group, published in the journal Cine Cubano (March 1969), and was then more fully developed in the manifesto "Towards a Third Cinema: Notes and Experiences for the Development of a Cinema of Liberation in the Third World," written by

Fernando Solanas (b. 1936) and Octavio Getino (b. 1935), members of that group. Since its publication in Tricontinenal (Havana, 1969), the essay has been translated and published in many languages. Solanas and Getino begin with the premise that in a situation of neocolonialism or underdevelopment, filmmakers need to begin shaping a practice that diverges both from "First Cinema," industrial cinema that is commercially distributed for profit, which can only lead to a sense of inadequacy and impotence for neocolonised audiences; and from "Second Cinema," art cinema developed by Glauber Rocha on the set of Barravento (The Turning Wind, 1962). Talented individuals, some of whom attempt to contest the status quo, yet whose work is ultimately recuperated by the "System," if only to represent the possibility of dissent. Hollywood cinema epitomises the former, globally hegemonic model, whereas Euro American and even Latin American auteurist cinemas, taking the form of the French nouvelle vague (new wave) or Brazilian cinema nvo , exemplify the second option. In contrast to these, filmmakers are to side with "national culture" against the culture "of the rulers" and develop films that the "System cannot assimilate and which are foreign to its needs, or that directly and explicitly set out to fight the System." (Martin, New Latin American Cinema , p.42). A number of core precepts follow from this mission. First, there is the creation of interdependence between a revolutionary aesthetic and revolutionary activity, of which the cinema is but one integral componentsomething easier said than done. Given the political struggle of Third filmmakers on two fronts, one where resistance is put up against neocolonial cultural domination and the other where the masses become engaged in historical and ideological analysis on the way to achieving national liberation and class equality, Third Cinema faces two tasks: the demystification of neocolonial art and media (with their "universalist" discourse), and the search for a film language that reflects and advances national concerns. These tasks require a close, and preferably dialectical, relationship between film theory and practice. Indeed, Solanas and Getino formulated the theory of Third Cinema only after they had shot and released the three-part documentary, La Hora de los Hornos ( Hour of the Furnaces , 1968), which exhibits the form taken by cinema when it is placed in the service of the "masses" following a thorough analysis of the contemporary economic, social, and political conjuncture. It is an essay film, incorporating documentary footage from a wide range of sources (including those antagonistic to the filmmakers' project), in which facts are presented and analysed by way of intertitles and voice-over narration that often disrupt the spectator's immersion in the diegetic spaces of the images. According to Solanas and Getino's formulation, documentary is most instrumental in developing Third Cinemait lays bare the lived experience of the majority, counter posing "naked reality" to "movie-life," or the version of reality the ruling class. Contemporary Sri Lankan cinema It is highly doubtful whether contemporary Sri Lankan filmmakers make an attempt to redefine the language of filmmaking investing it with the concept of Third Cinema. It is

increasingly clear that they (filmmakers) are pre-occupied more with achieving financial objectives than driven by an ideology for cinema. To a certain extent, Third Cinema would offer an alternative path for young and up-coming filmmakers and for the veterans to make truly Sri Lankan cinema which explores issue more relevant to the masses.