Sri Lanka Mahendra Perera is a successful Sri Lankan actor celebrating twenty years in the industry. Two of his earliest roles were in films by eminent director Prasanna Vithanage, Walls Within (1997) and Death on a Full Moon Day (1997), the latter widely considered the director’s masterwork and one of the leading Sri Lankan films of all time. Roles in the award-winning dramas Saroja (2000) and Asoka Handagama’s Flying with One Wing (2002), followed, before his first lead role, in Buongiorno Italia (2004). In 2005 he appeared in Vimukthi Jayasundara’s The Forsaken Land (2005), the first Sri Lankan film ever to win the Cannes Film Festival Camera d’Or. In 2008 he starred in Uberto Pasolini’s comedy Machan and the APSA nominated film Siri Raja Siri.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and emerging. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
