APM - Asian Project Market

 

Back to list MA – Cry of Silence (aka The Three Women from Myanmar)

Director’s Profile

The Maw Naing studied filmmaking at Yangon Film School, and at the Film and TV School (FAMU) of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. He is a poet, installation artist and filmmaker. His poems often form an integral part of his installations and films, which have earned him several awards and have been shown internationally. His short film, Again and Again (2005), based on his poetry, won a special prize at the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival 2008 in Berlin. His first feature length documentary, Nargis: When Time Stopped Breathing (2010), won 4 prizes and has been screened at over 26 international film festivals. He co-directed and edited The Clinic (Aung Min, 2010), a 25-minute documentary which showed at the Guggenheim Museum New York in 2013. Another of his short films, Between the Pages (2010), is in the permanent collection of Fukuoka Museum, in Japan. His full-length debut, The Monk (2014), won 3 prizes internationally and is still being shown, having been screened at over 30 international film festivals to date.

Synopsis

Mi-su has difficulty at the factory because she is a particularly slow worker. She lives together with colleagues, and hears their various stories about things such as love, jealousy, mental attitude, family and money. Actually, their factory owner doesn’t pay them properly, so they are all struggling to make a living. One day, a few colleagues suggest a strike, and she reluctantly follows along with the others. But, she receives a call from her mom explaining that they are going to lose their farm because the army intends to occupy it, and now the family desperately needs money.
Ei-lay, a housemaid, is experiencing a growing sense of loss, and struggles to suppress the feeling. One day, her landlady gives her a pair of pretty shoes that have been discarded by her daughter. Ei-lay feels really happy for a while, but real life returns when she stops in front of a flyer advertising better education for a higher income.
Ei-phyu is a pregnant chambermaid working in a hotel. She nervously awaits any word from her husband, who is working in Thailand, because their first baby is coming soon and she hasn’t heard from him. Her colleague brings her baby to the hotel and must keep the child inside of a dirty storage closet. The baby plays alone and crawls around in the cramped and messy storage area. When Ei-phyu sees this, she is overwhelmed with feelings of anxiety, fearing that the same terrible situation is likely to be in her future.
Colleagues call to Mi-su loudly, but she just stands in front of a flower shop, an intense look on her face. Ei-lay’s pretty shoes appear, passing by behind Mi-su. Ei-phyu moves on the opposite side of Ei-lay, who carries a bunch of flowers. People disappear slowly into the dark and other people slowly emerge.

Achievements

2024 Busan International Film Festival - New Currents
2024 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival

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