Theatre Asoka Handagama’s entry to filmmaking was via the theatre and television. His maiden theatrical effort, "Bhoomika", was to address the seedling emerging ethnic crisis in the Island. The play won the National Youth award for best direction in 1985. His second stage play "Thunder", was placed second runner up in the Best script in 1987 State drama Festival. The country was a real killing field when he directed his third, and most controversial play, "Magatha". The play, with its radical theatrical form, bravely questioned the existing judicial system of the country. "Magatha" was shown almost all parts of the country, not only in the theatres, in the paddy fields and work places as well. Among all the controversies, the play won the Best Original Script and Best Director award in 1989, State Drama Festival. The script was published in 2011, and won the State Literary Award for Best Drama Script. TV Series Asoka Handagama’s exercises in the field of TV-art, were unique. "Dunhidda Addara" is a clear landmark in the history of so-called tele-dramas in Sri Lanka. It won all nine main awards including the Best Script and Direction, at the OCIC awards in 1994.[citation needed] "Diyaketa Pahana", his third TV work, added a new dimension to the traditional tele-feature series. "Synthetic Sihina" explored a way to have a post-modern political discussion in the form of a serious episodic tele-play. He exploited the short spell of ‘ceasefire’ ( 2003- 2006) observed by Government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) to shoot his next tele-feature- series, Take This Road in Jaffna, the Northern capital of Sri Lanka to create a dialogue on the root causes of the on-going war. East is Calling, the tele-feature series was on the same theme set in a Tsunami rehabilitation camp. Filmography Chanda Kinnarie was his debut effort in cinema. Breaking the rules of so-called realism, this film clearly indicated the formation of a cinematic language consisting of hyper-realistic images. The film won the Award for Most Promising Director at the Critics’ awards in 1994. It was also awarded Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the 1998 OCIC awards. Asoka Handagama’s academic background in mathematics and development economics has stood him in good stead as an artist. Certainly it has helped him tackle the technical intricacies of film, television and the theatre, and to use these forms to maximum creative effect. More importantly this background has enabled him to sort out his priorities as a creative artiste who is conscious of the joys, sorrow and contradictions of daily life around him. Asoka Handagama is acutely aware of the social origins and implications of his work as a film and video maker. These two acute concerns for the technical and the social in the movie making have not made it easy for him in his career. When he made his second film, "Moon Hunt" (1996), he used the experienced Japanese cinematographer Akira Takada