Ethnographic Film Series

Organised by SOAS Department of Anthropology & Sociology in conjunction with Royal Anthropological Institute

Wednesday 20 January 1pm, Khalili Lecture Theatre, Lower Ground Floor, Main Building, SOAS

Behind the Screen, Aung Nwai Htway Yangon Film School, 2012, 35 mins
Lady of the Lake, Zaw Naing Oo Yangon Film School, 2014, 22 mins
Tyres, Kyaw Myo Lwin, Yangon Film School, 2013, 30 mins

This screening features three recent films produced by the Yangon Film School in Myanmar. 

In the first a filmmaker considers his famous film star parents' broken marriage.  The film takes a very personal approach to iconic film footage of the 1960s - as if it might contain the answers he didn't get as a child, when his parents separated. This merging of family and film history creates a magical mix of fact and fiction, or - as the son calls it - "the real and the celluloid wedding".

The second film focuses on the lives of the villagers of Pyun Su on the banks of Moe Yun Gyi lake as they prepare and perform the festival of the nat. Winner of the 2013 Goethe-Institut Myanmar Jade Award for Documentaries- ‘A beautifully filmed, rare glimpse of some of Myanmar’s powerful supernatural beliefs and their meaning for the people who practice them in this stunning Lakeland region not far from the country’s former capital of Yangon.’ 

The third film portrays a tyre recycling workshop in South Okkalapa in Yangon.  It is a site where defunct tyres are transformed from their original shape and use, and are reborn into new and completely different lives. Filmed almost entirely in black-and-white, this observational documentary gently explores a community of tyre cutters and recyclers, young and old, male and female, as they create with their super-sharp blades, careful eyes and skilful strokes, buckets, brushes and slippers from discarded rubber tyres. The film won the Material Culture and Archaeology Film Prize at the 14th RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film 2015.

For further information on the films please contact: RAI Film Officer, Caterina Sartori, film@therai.org.uk 

All are welcome, booking not required.