Award Winning Films 2017

Ma Yan Chan – Waves of Transition

Jonas Scheu/ Documentary / Switzerland / 2016 / 29 min

For generations, the Dockers and their families have lived and worked on the Irrawaddy riverbank in Mandalay, the ancient royal capital of Myanmar. In a time of great transition, their lifestyle is suddenly threatened by Government intervention resulting in lasting transformation. Against their will, the authorities try to dislocate them into newly built concrete buildings.


Aung San Suu Kyi Award (International)

Non Fossils

Moore Thit Sett Htoon/ Documentry / Myanmar / 2017 / 23 min

Water of the Lake,In itself serene and calm.But when something stirs and shakes Ripples and waves awaken For a moment not so great,Brief as a click of the tongue.And then…The water is once again calm Untile up from the lake.


Aung San Suu Kyi Award (National)

It Happened One Night in Chinatown

M.noe/ Short/ Myanmar / 2017 / 16 min

A man and woman who have nothing in common except loneliness have a chance encounter in the atmospheric red lantern-adorned streets of Yangon’s China town during the Chinese New Year time.


Min Ko Naing Award

Psycho Zero

Team Psycho Zero/ Omnibus Film/ Myanmar / 2017 / 85 min

An “omnibus film” is a subgenre of films consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event. Sometimes each one is directed by a different director.

Omnibus film titled “Psycho Zero” features the works of 14 directors with 14 unique takes on psychological problems / conditions.


Hanthawady U Win Tin Award

Deep Inside Her

Kaung Myat Thu Kyaw/ Documentary / Myanmar / 2017 / 20 min

When the effort is the same, but the result is not…


VOA Award

She

Kyal Yi Linn Six / Documentry / Myanmar / 2017 / 30min

A Buddhist nun, a Christian nun, and a muslin woman. Their lives, their experiences, and the challenges that they face.


Gender Equality Film Award

Award Winning Films 2016

Behemoth

Liang Zhao/ Documentary/ France, China/ 2015/ 90 min

Behemoth is a biblical monster, the beast of an invincible country. Today, the beast could be seen as man himself, raping the earth to obtain its wealth. He is unaware that the destruction of the land is far from over. The beast eventually begins to devour itself. This film operates as a cinematic parable, training its focus on Chinese mines, with their giant machines, noise, dirt, destroyed nature, sick and dying miners. It leads to a newly built city, where nobody lives. The allegory relies on the power of images and words from Dante's Divine Comedy, the inspiration for the filmmakers.


Aung San Suu Kyi Award (International)

Syrian Love Story

Sean McAllister/ Documentary/ UK/ 2015/ 75 min

Activists Raghda and Amer met in prison – through a hole in the wall. They fell in love, got married, and had three sons. Well-know documentarist Sean McAllister started filming their story in 2009. At the time, Raghda was in prison again and Amer had to care for their family. When Raghda is finally released, the filmmaker is imprisoned. The family is in imminent danger, but Amer convinces the hesitant Raghda to leave Syria. They flee through Lebanon to France. In exile, Raghda must deal with her dual identity: she is a wife and mother but she is also a political activist. Dreams are shattered; love turns into anger and despair. The marriage is as fragile as the situation in Syria.

Winner of the Jury Mention Award

My Life I Don’t Want

Nyan Kyal Say/ Animation/ Myanmar / 2016 / 10 min

My Life I Don’t Want A short animated film about the life of a Myanmar girl inspired by true events

Winner of the March 13 award

Traces

Aung Myint Myat Cho / Short/ Myanmar / 2016 / 6 min

A short film about a rural girl’s hope, her educational aspiration and the twists and turns of her life.

Winner of the Min Ko Naing Award

Woman with a Gun

Mary, Yu Par Mo Mo / Doc / Myanmar / 2016 / 20 min

About a tough ethnic Rawan woman in Putao region.

Winner of the Gender Equality Award

A Peaceful Land

Sai Kong Kham, Lamin Oo/ Doc / Myanmar /2016 / 21 min

In 2005, Myanmar government started a nation-wide campaign to plant Physic Nut – a toxic bush-like tree – for biodiesel production. It was considered “a national duty” to grow these trees. The country was to plant eight million acres within three years. This radical program resulted in land confiscations and forced labor all over the country. Faced with these hardship and injustice, four courageous farmers from Nat Mauk (Magway Division) stood up against the authorities and fought for their rights and their land.

Winner of the Vaclav Havel Library Award

Lovely Bone

Nwaye Zar Che Soe/ Doc/ Myanmar / 2015 /17 min

The documentary which will highlight the struggles and surroundings faced by a disabled bread-winner from the rural area, the supports of his wife, the attitudes towards their disabled father by the children who have no right to choose parents as well as the strong bonds of attachment in the family.



Winner of the VOA Award

Vein

Ko Jet, Htet Aung San, Phyo Zayar Kyaw/ Doc / Myanmar / 2016 / 45 min

A part of one of the biggest corruption sites in Myanmar.

Winner of the Aung San Suu Kyi Award (National) and
Winner of the Hanthawady U Win Tin Award

Missing Footprint

Mary, Pyae Shine Ko, Min Thiha / Doc / Myanmar / 2016 / 25 min

About a veteran who sacrificed a leg for his country.

Winner of the Peter Wintonick Award

Award Winning Films 2015

Touching the Fire

Min Than Oo / Doc / Myanmar / 2015 / 39 min

A clash between villagers and the Toyo Company from Thailand who try to set up the new Charcoal Factory...

Winner of the Aung San Suu Kyi National Award

The Look of Silence

Joshua Oppenheimer / Doc / Denmark, Indonesia, Norway, Finland, UK / 2014 / 103 min

Through Joshua Oppenheimer’s work filming perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered and the identity of the men who killed him. The youngest brother is determined to break the spell of silence and fear under which the survivors live, and so confronts the men responsible for his brother's murder – something unimaginable in a country where killers remain in power.

Winner of the Aung San Suu Kyi International Award

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A Buffalo Boy

Mai Ah Nway (Ta’ang Chitthu) / Short / Myanmar / 2015 / 12 min

About a boy from the village of Paloung Mountain and how he become a buffalo boy.

Winner of the Min Ko Naing Award and
Winner of the Hantharwady U Win Tin Award

I Wanna Go To School

Nyan Kyal Say / Animation / Myanmar / 2015 / 3 min

A short animation about a brother and a sister who always dream of going to school together. They are trying to escape from obstacles such as gender inequality, poverty, child abuse, child labour, human trafficking, etc. that are blocking their chance to education.

Winner of March 13 Award

Across

Phyo Zayar Kyaw, Pyae Zaw Phyo, Kaung Sint / Doc / Myanmar / 2015 / 90 min

A big natural gas and petrol pipe line project, the first country-cross pipe line project, was launched in Myanmar. Since Myanmar government sold natural gas, a very valuable resource, a Project Named “GOLD” began from Yakhine off shores to China. Because of these immediate projects, there were not only land confiscating processes but also many changes in the environment and lifestyle of people. So, people who spoke different languages from different regions responded in different ways.

Winner of the Vaclav Havel Library Award

Well Gyi

Thu Thu Swe Thein, Htet Aung San, Kam Khan Sing / Doc / Myanmar / 2015 / 27 min

About one of the biggest human rights violation cases in Myanmar.

Winner of the Peter Wintonick Award

I Will not be Silenced

Judy Rymer / Doc / Australia / 2014 / 84 min

Charlotte, a young Australian who works in the slums of Nairobi, was attacked and gang-raped in her home. Shame and shock give way to anger. Against her embassy's recommendation that she immediately leave the country, Charlotte chooses to fight back. She wants to convict the offenders and fight for the rights of other rape victims in Kenya, where rape is endemic but rarely discussed in public. More than a seven-year legal ordeal awaits her, during which she will have to describe her harrowing experience again and again. The camera sensitively follows Charlotte for several years, through moments of despair as well as determination, and during times when she lacks the strength to continue.

Winner of JURY MENTION AWARD

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Award Winning Films 2014

This Land is Our Land

Sai Kong Kham / Doc / Myanmar / 30 min.

Five farmers struggle to find a foothold as the very ground they stand on changes. A thriving forest in the Dry Zone is confiscated; drought leads to wood-cutting leads to drought as vicious cycle spins in another area; the Ayerwaddy eats away an island village that used to be prosperous; coal mines and landfills replace farmlands and villages in and villages in Tigyit (Shan State). As these farmers grapple with the changes of their land they share their stories, thoughts, worries and hopes

Winner of the Aung San Suu Kyi National Award

Miners Shot Down

Rehad Desai / Doc / South Africa / 85 min

Renowned director Rehad Desai returned to the events of August 2012, when the Marikana mine in South Africa experienced the worst episode of bloodshed since the end of apartheid. For seven days, thousands of miners protested for a living wage. The non-violent demonstration was brought down through an intervention by state police forces, in which more than 30 miners were shot dead and many others injured. In this political thriller, the director reconstructs the sequence of events through testimonies and footage of the massacre, drawing a disturbing picture of the mechanism of power in South Africa, where corporations make profits by exploiting the poorest. One World present the film's world premiere.

Winner of the Aung San Suu Kyi International Award

The Last Refuge

Anne-Laure Poree, Guillaume Suon / Doc / Cambodia / 65 min

The Last Refuge follows the resistance of the Bunong people, who have been living for centuries in the hills of Eastern Cambodia, confronting alienation and annihilation by foreign companies who steal their lands, destroy their sacred forests and their traditional cemeteries in order to cultivate rubber plants.

Winner of the Aung San Suu Kyi Regional Award

An Untold Story

Joses Dennis C. Teodosio / Short / Myanmar / 20 min

“An Untold Story” is an experimental short narrative that fused fiction with facts. It inventively used symbols and metaphors to create gripping layers of meanings and interpretations. In a way, it pays homage to the nameless men and women who vowed and died championing human rights and whose heroic struggles and empowering stories might have been untold, or, worse, forgotten

Winner of the Min Ko Naing Award

The Seller

Zaw Bo Bo Hein / Animation / Myanmar / 5 min

There is an island rich in natural resources. The owner of that island is a very lazy person who spends his free time drinking somthing presumed to be a liquor. When he has run out of drinks, he starts selling off all the treasures and valuable hardwoods in exchange for the liquor, failing to notice that the valuable resources on the island is slowly depleting. One day, when he wakes up from a drunken slumber.....

Winner of March 13 Award

Enter

Kaung Sint / Short / Myanmar / 15 min

It’s about a young man who is imprisoned for writing a political blog. It’s a comparison of contrasts between his free life and his imprisoned life.

Winner of the Hantharwady U Win Tin Award

This Land is Our Land

Sai Kong Kham / Doc / Myanmar / 30 min.

Five farmers struggle to find a foothold as the very ground they stand on changes. A thriving forest in the Dry Zone is confiscated; drought leads to wood-cutting leads to drought as vicious cycle spins in another area; the Ayerwaddy eats away an island village that used to be prosperous; coal mines and landfills replace farmlands and villages in and villages in Tigyit (Shan State). As these farmers grapple with the changes of their land they share their stories, thoughts, worries and hopes .

Winner of the Vaclav Havel Library Award

Article 18: The Movie

Min Than Oo, Sein Lin, Khin Su Kyi / Doc / Myanmar / 20 min

In 2012, Myanmar’s Reformation Period, Article-18 of the Peaceful Assembly Act was passed. Under that article, a student leader named De Nyein Lin and pro-peace activists named May Sabae Phyu and Phway Yu Mon were unjustly arrested by the government. This film documents how the authority use Article-18 as a weapon to persecute the activists and abuses human rights, and how the people fought back. It covers the events that took place until the early 2014

Winner of Peter Wintonick Award

Award Winning Films 2013

Survival in Prison

Yee Nan Theik/ Docu / Myanmar / 2013 / 59 mins / Myanmar

For his student activism and political activities in 1999, San Zaw Htway was jailed for36 years. This film documents his life, hunger protests he staged for the rights of the people in jail, how he took up drawing with any available materials in order to ignore the jail’s suffocation, and how he becomes an artist after 12 years in jail and his family life.

Winner of the Aung San Suu Kyi Award National Award

The Act of Killing

Joshua Oppenheimer/ Doc / Denmark / 2012 / 115 min / Indonesian

In 1965, the army took power in Indonesia by force. Prior to that, small players in the local underworld, thieves or debt collectors, had been given a task by soldiers: kill communists. Their death squads and regime representatives murdered more than a million alleged communists, ethnic Chinese and intellectuals. Danish filmmakers have now solicited the former leader of these units in an attempt to portray their rampage in a fiction film and document the process. Anwar and his comrades bring the past to life in stylised scenes, celebrating the “liberated” souls of dead communists, dressed as gangsters from 1950s Hollywood movies, interrogating victims or roaming the prairies, mowing down enemies like the conquerors of the Wild West. The shooting of the film attracts the local media and the resuscitation of the unresolved past leads to mixed reactions on the part of indonesians. The murderers joke about their actions on TV and are the celebrated guests of state officials. The Act of Killing offers a chilling insight into the minds of mass murderers and a probe of the society they helped to create.

Winner of the Aung San Suu Kyi Award Intrenational Award

White and Green

Myanmar Treasure Media / Short / Myanmar / 2013 / 4 min

He is only 13 years old but has to be working at a tea shop, sadly looking at the others going to school in white and green uniforms. Unable to rein in his desire to go to school, he ends up running after the students to see what a school is like.


Winner of the Min Ko Naing Award

The Chess

Swuan Thura Tun / Animation / Myanmar / 2013 / 3 min

Because of the black chess piece that ignores the rules of the game and does what it wishes to do and bullies the others, the white chess pieces, afraid to do anything, have to endure in silence. Hence, the rules of the game become corrupt and even after the rules are restored, all are still afraid to do anything. Only later, the chess pieces regain their courage and slowly reengage in their games.


Winner of March 13 Award

Rights

Maung Sunn / Animation / Myanmar / 2013 / 3 min

Under the name of ‘Rights’, some people ask for their own rights; however, some use that as an opportunity.


Winner of the Vaclav Havel Library Award

Go Home

Maung Aye Chan / Docu / Norway / 2012 / 44 min / Myanmar and Thailand

The Burmese people fled their country to neighbouring Thailand to be able to celebrate humanity within their culture, customs and spiritual beliefs – even in the midst of their undocumented lives in the squalor of the rubbish dumps.

In Thailand, they live in and rely upon rubbish dumps for their survival and to avoid being captured by Thai police.


Winner of NBC Award

Red Wedding

Guillaume Suon, Lida Chan / Doc / France / 2012 / 58 min / Cambodia

Between 1975 and 1979,at least 250,000 Cambodian women were forced into marriages by the Khmer Rouge. Sochan was one of them. At the age of 16, she was forced to marry a soldier who raped her. After 30 years of silence, Sochan has decided to bring her case to the international tribunal set up to try former Khmer Rouge leaders. Noces rouges is the story of a survivor who pits her humanity against an ideology and a system designed to annihilate people like her.


Winner of JURY MENTION AWARD