Sanjeewa Pushpakumara


Sanjeewa Pushpakumara is a Sri Lankan film director, screenwriter and producer.

Career

Pushpakumara completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura in 2005. He pursued a diploma in filmmaking at the Sri Lanka National Film Corporation in 2006. In 2007, Pushpakumara received a scholarship from the Korean Culture and Tourism Ministry under its Cultural Partnership Initiative, to study filmmaking in the Asian Young Film Forum and also to learn Korean at Jeonbuk National University. In 2008, he obtained a master's degree in mass communications from the University of Kelaniya.In 2025, he earned his Ph.D. in Imaging Science and Arts, specializing in Film and Multimedia, from Chung-Ang University, Seoul, South Korea—becoming the first Sri Lankan to receive a Ph.D. in filmmaking.
In 2009, Pushpakumara was selected to the Asian Film Academy of Busan International Film Festival. He participated in Berlinale Talent Campus in 2012. In 2014, he obtained an advanced degree in filmmaking from the Chung-Ang University in South Korea as a Korean Government Scholarship Holder.
Pushpakumara's first feature film, Flying Fish (Sinhala: Igillena Maluwo), received post-production support from the Hubert Bals Fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Subsequently, Flying Fish world premiered at the IFFR and was nominated for the Festival's Tiger Award. The film reflects the deep social and psychological trauma of Sri Lanka's twenty-six-year-long civil war. Flying Fish garnered many accolades and the film was invited to more than thirty international film festivals around the world. In a review for the 5th Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival, film commentator Tony Rayns wrote that, in Pushpakumara, "Sri Lankan Cinema has found its true modernist" and he has also described Flying Fish as "scrupulously non-partisan, deeply humane, sexually candid, coolly modernist in style and almost indecently beautiful".
In 2012, Pushpakumara was invited by the Cinéfondation of Cannes Film Festival to its Résidence programme in Paris to develop his second feature film, Burning Birds. The film received production support from Doha Film Institute and post-production support from the Hubert Bals Fund and Aide aux cinémas du monde.
In 2014, the Biennale College of Venice Film Festival invited Pushpakumara to Venice to develop his third film project Peacock Lament. In 2019, Peacock Lament was also selected by the Nipkow Art Residence in Berlin for advance script development. In 2018, the film project Amma won Locarno Film Festival's Open Doors main prize. In 2019, the Amma project was also invited to Film Independent's Global Media Makers LA Residency in Los Angeles for advance script development.
Currently, Pushpakumara is the designer of the course and the Course Director at Sri Lanka Film School, the country's first film school.

Filmography

Feature films

When Nothing Matters - in development Amma - in development Peacock Lament - Asu Burning Birds - Director/Writer/ProducerFlying Fish - Director/Writer/Producer

Short films

Lotus Mother Unforgiven - Writer/Director An Encounter in the Woods - Production DesignerWings to Fly - Director/Writer/ProducerTouch - Director/Writer/Producer

Awards and nominations

''Flying Fish'' (''Igillena Maluwo'') (2011)

''Burning Birds'' (''Davena Vihagun'') (2018)