Details
Fundraising screening and discussion, presented by the Pe Maung Same Film Fund in collaboration with Stars of Myanmar Friendship UK.
In May 2008, a cyclone called Nargis raged for hours in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwaddy Deta, killing 140,000 people. Seven days after the storm, several young Burmese filmmakers made their way – carefully, since filming was banned by the government – to villages that had been utterly devastated and met people who had lost everything to the cyclone.
They recorded scenes that touched them to the core, moving through a world that appeared more surreal than real, where life and death seemed to coexist. Their images reflect their own feelings as much as those of the people they met; these emotions have been woven into a film that conveys what it means when a natural disaster like Nargis changes forever the lives of so many.
Following the screening of Nargis – When Time Stopped Breathing, event organiser Ko Banya from Stars of Myanmar Friendship UK and feminist activist/researcher and filmmaker Shun Lei will lead a panel discussion reflecting on Myanmar today and Burmese documentary film.
This is a fundraising event. All donations and proceeds from ticket sales will be split between the Pe Maung Same Film Fund and the Nargis filmmakers, including the family of Pe Maung Same.
About Pe Maung Same and the Pe Maung Same Film Fund
Born in Yangon in 1974, Pe Maung Same developed his love for documentary as an editor of newsreel and historical films before becoming a cinematographer and director. His debut short film Like Father, Like Son won a Heinrich Boell Foundation Documentary Award in 2007. He co-directed Nargis – When Time Stopped Breathing in 2009, which garnered international acclaim and played at film festivals worldwide. Pe Maung Same was arrested in May 2022 and sentenced to three years in prison for ‘unlawful association.’ He passed away on August 19, 2024, three days after his release from military custody, aged 50. The Pe Maung Same Film Fund was established by a group of his close friends and fellow filmmakers to support young and emerging filmmakers with the same passion for storytelling, artistic integrity, and humane perspective that defined Pe Maung Same’s work.