Boodee Keerthisena
Vishvanath Buddhika Keerthisena, also known as Boodee Keerthisena, is a Sri Lankan filmmaker. He began his career drawing comics before moving into painting, dress design, and visual arts. He moved into music in the late 1980s, and performed in a band called ""Boo-Dee and the Woo-Zees"" (1986–1992) as the lead singer. In 1987, he went to New York City to study film. He joined the film department to study film and television at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. His thesis, presented at his graduation in 1995, was the feature film "Veils of Maya" ("Sihina  Deshaye"n ). The film won 31 awards in many festivals, including Best Director and Best Film. Since he returned to Sri Lanka in 1995, he has directed and produced over 100 TV commercials, more than 30 documentaries, two TV series, and many music videos. His work is influenced by John Cassavetes and contains elements of "cinema-verite" style. TV Commercials. Keerthisena shot and directed over 120 TV commercials between 1996 and December 2001. Products that he made commercials for include HSBC (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), Bata, Caltex, Eveready Batteries and Nestle Products. Screenplays yet to be produced. Writer of  six feature film screenplays and a detective thriller 20 episode TV series: Special. Boodee currently works with the company "Elephant and the mouse" with many VFX as a Visual Effects Supervisor for his own films as well as other movies. He wrote a column for the national newspaper "Sunday Observer" from 2009 to 2010. In October 2012, Boodee was the key figure who helped put together the 1st Italian Sri Lankan Film Festival in Colombo, Sri Lanka, which was presented by the Italian Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The festival has a non-competitive feature film section and a competitive  short film section. Other activities include: