Myanmar Film Collective exposes brutal face of military junta in ‘Myanmar Diaries’

Los Angeles, Feb 13  As Myanmar continues to remain in a state of siege by its own military, which is hell bent on curbing the civil uprising after two years of the coup, an anonymous Myanmar Film Collective, a group of local filmmakers are working to expose the crimes committed by the military through their work in films.

Deadline recently got in touch with a group to talk about their film ‘Myanmar Diaries’ and the civil movements.

‘Myanmar Diaries’, a hybrid doc-fiction is a feature born out of the concerted effort that intends to make the audience aware of what all has been happening inside the country for the past two years. Myanmar Film Collective recently spoke with Deadline ahead of the premiere of ‘Myanmar Diaries’ in the Berlin International Film Festival’s Panorama program on February 13.

They told Deadline, “We are desperately hoping for international attention. We want to be seen. Hopefully we can show audiences worldwide, but also lawmakers and politicians, the living circumstances of the people of Myanmar through our film. We show personal stories – on how the current violence affects our daily lives, and we show how much we have to all endure.”

While the military is further cracking down on dissenters, the filmmakers collective refuses to budge for they feel that the civil uprising is getting stronger with each passing day and that the military will be forced to surrender one day as the uprising has many facets to itself right from art, civil disobedience and films unlike the military which only has violence at their disposal.

They said, “We are storytellers, we wanted to show this in our film, we want to express our pain and suffering. There is so much more going on, so much more misery than presented in our film. We want the world to understand our struggles. We want the world to show solidarity with us. We want people to take action. We want accountability for the atrocities the junta is committing.”

They further said, “We want responsibility from the international world, we want people to stop all the support given to the military. There are many people who lost their homes, war refugees are piling up at the border of Myanmar. At least, sending aid would be a tremendous help. Now it is winter, people are lacking clothing, food, sanitised water and women need hygienic products.”

When Deadline asked them if there are other projects in the pipeline, the collective responded by saying, “Yes, we are developing ideas for further projects. Should people outside Myanmar wish to support the Myanmar Film Collective (any Myanmar filmmaker can join us) we are now setting up a platform, where we will be fundraising for new projects, and film professionals around the world are invited to support us in content and advise. The platform will be released in April.”