Hello! Back with Singapore Myanmar Film Festival.

I'm back!
With information of the Singapore Myanmar Film Festival which is happening this Sunday 7TH JULY 2013.


The Singapore Myanmar Film Festival 2013 is an inaugural event and this year they are celebrating the independent film makers from Myanmar. The theme is "
Celebrating friendship through film"

There are 5 winning movies (short films) for us to enjoy at each session  (1pm and 3.30pm) by independent film-makers that give you an intimate glimpse into the lives of people in Myanmar.

Not only that! You'll get to meet these film-makers who will be there to share about the inspirations behind the films. If you are like me, lovers of film and the story behind it - Come along too!


THE SHORT-LISTED FILMS (in alphabetical order):


A. Bamboo Grove
A film about a naive young city doctor on his first job after being posted to a rural Kayin* community in the Delta. Visiting his patients by boat, this doctor comes into conflict with traditional Kayin ideas about medicine through U Kee Yo, an old man determined to remain in his beloved bamboo grove.

This is the first film of director Khin Khin Hsu who was trained as cinematographer during the 2009 YFS Beginners' Workshop and proved herself to be a talented and sensitive editor on various YFS projects in 2010 including the warmly observational Thursday's Child. She grew up in a film environment and perhaps inherited her filmmaking talent from her father, the well-known Burmese  
                 editor U Ohn Maung.

B. Bungkus
'Bungkus' is the Malay word for 'parcel', the name given to young women sent
abroad to marry men they may never have met so that they can send money back
to their families in Myanmar. Set in the Chin* community of Yangon, the story
follows Zing Zing whose tenderly flowering relationship with a local boy Asang is
threatened when her mother decides she must become a 'parcel'.

*Myanmar ethnic group

Born in Kayah State in eastern Myanmar, director Lay Thida joined YFS in 2005. Her first film, Just a Boy, screened at international film festivals.
She has directed four films for clients in the development sector (The Change Maker, A Farmer's Tale, Listen to Us and The Long Way Home). 2010 was a particularly busy year for Lay Thida: she also made two documentaries, Unreported Story and Wrong Side Up, the latter produced during a ten- week course at the UK's National Film and TV School. Lay Thida is co-founder of the NGO Better Life which has projects in the Ayeyarwaddy Delta and Rakhine State.

C. Burmese Butterfly
Twenty-one-year-old hairdresser Phyo Lay looks back on a turbulent childhood
and adolescence and describes how difficult it is to come out in Myanmar. A rare
glimpse into the emergent gay community in this hitherto isolated country.

Born in Kyaukphyu in Rakhine State in 1985, Hnin Ei Hlaing entered the film industry with a diploma in computer art with the Forever Group and subsequently worked as an editor for MRTV. Since joining YFS in 2006 she has worked as a regular sound recordist and/or editor on a number of YFS productions (including An Untitled Life, The Change Maker and A Bright Future). She says she knew nothing about Myanmar’s gay scene before deciding to make this portrait of her hairdresser. Burmese Butterfly marks her first film as a director. Hnin Ei Hlaing is currently working as Production Manager in the Yangon Film School’s management team in Yangon, where she oversees crew hire and the production of commissioned documentaries. She is also working on a new observational documentary of her own, about a family of potters.

D. My Grandfather's house
Thakin Htein Win’s granddaughter reminisces about the old wooden house
where she grew up - a house which was once a meeting place for some of the
architects of Burma’s (Myanmar) independence movement, in which her
grandfather played a pivotal role.

 Born of a Burmese publisher father and a Shan mother, young English graduate Shunn
Lei Swe Yee has been active in a number of youth and development networks. A passionate feminist and co-founder of the ‘Rainfall Gender Study Group’, she claims that one of the reasons she joined Yangon Film School was to learn how to make films that will give a stronger voice to women in Myanmar.

E. The Old Photographer
An affectionate portrait of ninety-year-old Indian photographer G. M. Ahuja, who
still lives in the once popular photographic studio in downtown Yangon that his
father opened almost a century ago.

Business management graduate Thet Oo Maung is of Kayin-Armenian descent. A dedicated humanitarian, self-taught painter, photographer and videographer, he has often used his skills to record the activities of organisations – such as Gahahita, Activista and ActionAid – for whom he has worked or volunteered. His decision to join Yangon Film School was motivated by his desire to improve his filmmaking abilities and so support Myanmar’s transition. Besides continuing to make his own films, he now works as YFS  School Manager.


For more information on the shows on how to purchase them, 
http://www.singaporemyanmarfilmfestival.org