EAP Films was originally founded as Edirisinghe Cinema Theatres in 1972. It has the largest share of the

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

theatre market with more than 15+ screens island-wide. It started producing films in 1994 and its first release was '' Dhawala Pushpaya'' (1994). The company has been listed on the

Colombo Stock Exchange The Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) (; ) is the main stock exchange in Sri Lanka that utilizes an electronic trading platform. The CSE headquarters have been located at the World Trade Center (Colombo) Towers in Colombo since 1995, and it has regi ...

since the 2000s.

History

The company was founded by a husband-and-wife team in 1972 as Edirisinghe Cinema Theatres under its parent company, EAP Group. EAP acquired

Savoy Cinema The Savoy Cinema is the oldest operational cinema in Dublin, and it is the preferred cinema in Ireland for film premières. History The cinema was built in 1929 by Meagher & Hayes, on the site of the old Granville Hotel. The luxurious auditor ...

theatres in 1974. At first only Sinhala films were distributed, but during the mid-1980s a license for distribution of

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

movies was added. Its theatres converted to digital in 2014. A cinema was built in

Wellawatte Wellawatta is a neighbourhood of Colombo, Sri Lanka. It lies immediately south of Bambalapitiya and is classified as zone 6 within the Colombo Municipal region. The town begins at the old Dutch canal just before the Savoy Cinema and extends s ...

. EAP Film had their highest recorded bookings of 10,000 tickets for the 3D Tamil film '' 2.0''. Sunil Ariyaratne's '' Vijayaba Kollaya, Gajaman'' was also screened in 3D. In 2015

Village Roadshow Village Roadshow is an Australian company which operates cinemas and theme parks, and produces and distributes films. Before being acquired by private equity company BGH Capital, the company was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange a ...

of Australia and EAP Group signed a partnership. In 2019, Ben Holdings acquired EAP Films for 12 billion Rs. In 2019, EAP Broadcasting Company parent company EAP Holdings was acquired by Lyca Group. EAP Broadcasting Company is a subsidiary of Ben Holdings along with

Lyca Productions Lyca Productions () is an Indian entertainment company founded by Subaskaran Allirajah in 2014. Subaskaran Allirajah is a British citizen of Sri Lanka Tamil ethnicity. A subsidiary of Lycamobile (part of the Lyca Group), the studio has been i ...

Circuit

Apart from theatre, EAP Films & Theatres have their own circuit which is used to distribute film to theatres.

References

Film organisations in Sri Lanka Companies of Sri Lanka 1972 establishments in Sri Lanka {{SriLanka-company-stub