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The Third Eye 5th Asian Film Festival in Mumbai is one of their many stops to expand their horizons “beyond the influence of Hollywood.” So they have been travelling across India, Japan, China, Germany and the Netherland.

Myanmar’s filmmakers are here with their entourage of actors, directors and their able translator Grace Swe Zin Htaik, shopping and sampling local cuisine between screenings at the film festival.

“Currently, we have just a handful of filmmakers who make 60 to 65 films a year. Compared to the rest of Asia, that is a low turnout,” says Kei Soe Tun, president of the Myanmar Motion Picture Organisation (MMPO).

While it’s relatively easy for filmmakers to shoot on mini DV - there are special parlours that screen films made for DVD, most filmmakers want to make high production cinema that is shot on film.

“We find it so exciting to see a new kind of cinema that is less predictable and is infused with a variety of cultural references. By making contact with the rest of Asia we hope to spread the word about films made in Myanmar,” says Kei Soe Tun.

Director San Shwe Maun, one of the seniors in the group, is nostalgic about the Golden era of filmmaking in Myanmar, then known as Burma. “Between 1965 and 1975, we had the best of Burma’s films rolling. There was very little prohibition or censorship, the economy was doing well and it was easy to make films on many topics then,” says Maung.

It may come as a surprise then that the Myanmar package showing at the Third Eye 5th Asian Film Festival has concentrated mostly on recent films and there aren’t any from the ‘Golden Period’.

“Right now, the kind of cinema that is popular in Myanmar are historical epics, social dramas and suspense thrillers,” says San Shwe Maung.

“There are good actors and we would like to play with the medium to introduce new story lines and structures to cinema. But for now it’s good enough to be here and take things in,” says the award-winning director.

Source: www.screenindia.com

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