H.E. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in Geneva served on the jury committee of the Time for Peace Film & Music Awards 2007/2008 which was held in London on 12^th May 2008.

Ambassador Jayatilleka was one of 26 Ambassadors who were selected from among the 163 Ambassadors/Permanent Representatives based in Geneva to serve as jury committee members of the Award ceremony 2007/2008.  Ambassador Jayatilleka is also invited to serve on the jury committee of the Time for Peace Film & Music Awards 2008/2009.   The 2007/2008 Time for Peace Film & Music Award winners are: Michael Winterbottom - English Language Film Award (The Mighty Heart), Alexander Sokurov - Europeam Film Award (Alexandra), John Carney - European Film Award (Once), Naomi Kawase - Asian Film Award (The Mourning Forest) and Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova - Music Film Award. The Time for Peace Film & Music Awards, launched in New York in 1994 by Marion Einbeck and Robert Einbeck, is a response to the need for popularizing films and music recognized for their artistic quality that further the ideals of humanist values such as tolerance, better understanding between people, respect for differences and human solidarity. It is intended to inspire hope through films and music and to show how heroes who aspire to what is the best in a human life could serve as examples for a large audience.  

Ambassador H.E. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka and Mrs. Jayatilleka 

     at the Time for Peace Film & Music Awards 2007/2008 in London

The idea underlying the award is that art and culture are important catalysts. Films and music have a strong impact on understanding the world while their creation can potentially have a positive influence.

The paramount objective for social impact, which is the mission of the Time for Peace Film & Music Awards, is to motivate the film industry to produce films that convey humanist values and to make the public, and young people in particular, receptive to living these humanist values in their everyday life guided by the cinema.  

---

Ambassador H.E. Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka  (05^th from left ) and Mr. Michael Winterbottom, director of “The Mighty Heart” (10^th from left ) with other jury committee members and

award winners

---

The responsibility of the Time for Peace Film & Music Awards is to continue and expand its efforts so that people will come to associate pop culture with social understanding, cooperation, and constructive behavior. 

Its goals are:  -To establish a strategy for the creation of an Internet databank of cinematographic work of high artistic quality that provides humanist values that call attention to a culture of tolerance, respect for differences, a better understanding between human beings, solidarity, and the preservation of the environment.  -To put a pedagogic curriculum in place that allows school teachers and university faculty to use cinematography in the teaching of their courses so that in their daily lives their students will be imbued with the works of great film directors and inspired by their values.  -To create a Time for Peace Film foundation that will supervise the development of the cinematographic databank and the implantation of an international educational system.  

Official website of The Time for Peace Film & Music Awards: www.timeforpeace.com