Deshabandu Tissa Ananda Abeysekara (7 May 1939 – 18 April 2009 as තිස්ස අබේසේකර) was a Sri Lankan filmmaker, actor, writer, director, screen playwright and political activist.

[citation needed] Abeysekera began his career as a short-story writer, writing in Sinhala, when he was still a schoolboy, and he got some short stories published in the Dinamina and Janatha national newspapers.

Barely out of his teens, he published a collection of Sinhala short stories, which received favourable reviews, bringing him praise from Ediriweera Sarachchandra.

In addition, he made over 40 documentaries for the Government Film Unit[9] before breaking through as a feature filmmaker with Karumakkarayo, based on Gunadasa Amarasekara's controversial novel.

[10] Abeysekara received the Presidential Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1978 for the five minutes role as "Kudapola Thero" in the blockbuster film Veera Puran Appu.

In 1996, his novella Bringing Tony Home won the Gratiaen Prize for the best piece of Creative Writing in English by a resident Sri Lankan.