Ma - Cry of Silence
The Maw Naing | Myanmar, South Korea, Singapore, France, Norway, Qatar | 2024 | 74'
Screenings
Tue 25 March H 21:45
Section
Original title
Ma - Cry of Silence
Synopsis
Mi-Thet, a young worker from Myanmar, moves to Yangon to work in a textile factory and maintain her family. Here, under a ruthless foreman, she is abused and goes for months without being paid. Determined to put up a fight, she joins in a strike organized by her colleague Nyein-Nyein, but the violent repression by the police brings to light a trauma from the past. The first fiction film to relate the current socio-political reality in Myanmar.
Cast
Htet Htet, Khine Tha Zin Ko, Kyawt Kay Khaing, Nay Htoo Aung, Thidar, Ko Nanda, Nwe Nwe Soe, Su Lay
Films Distribution
Alpha Violet
Production
One Point Zero & Plus Point One
Editing
Oh Young Jeong
Cinematography
Tin Win Naing
Editing
Nicolas Bancilhon
Language
Burmese
Subtitles
Italian, English
Premiere
Italian première
Main awards
Special Mention (Bangkok World Film Festival 2024), New Currents Award (Busan International Film Festival, 2024)
Biography
"The Maw Naing was born in 1971 in Myanmar. He is a poet, installation artist, and filmmaker. He studied filmmaking at the Yangon Film School in 2005 and at the FAMU Film School in Prague in 2008.
One of his first short films, Again and Again, is based on one of his poems and won the Special Mention Prize at the Zebra Poetry IFF in Berlin in 2008. His other short film, Between the Pages (2010), has been part of the permanent collection at the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan since 2017.
His co-directed documentary, Nargis: When Time Stopped Breathing, was screened at CPH:DOX and IDFA.
His debut feature film, The Monk, premiered at Karlovy Vary FF in 2014, won three prizes, and was screened fifty times at international film festivals: he became the first Myanmar filmmaker in almost fifty years to present a feature at an international festival.
The Maw Naing is currently working on his third feature, Aung Who Wanted to Be Aung and Then Wanted to Be a Nun."
Filmography
2024 - Ma - Cry of Silence, ff
2014 – The Monk, ff
2011 - Nargis: When Time Stopped Breathing, ff (co-directed)
2010 - Between the Pages, sf
2008 - Again and Again, sf