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Dancing with the Spirits

A marionette master misses the magic that comes from performing with a live audience

Synopsis

Marionette master U Sein Aye Myint has practised his art for more than forty years, continuing the traditional skills passed down from his father. But the Covid pandemic and the military coup have prevented him and his puppets from performing. When the roof of his small workshop in Yangon’s North Dagon starts leaking in the monsoon, he has to clamber up to fix it himself to ensure his beloved puppets do not get wet. Observing him with age-old wisdom in their eyes, his puppets seem to sense all the things that are weighing heavily on his mind: his lack of income, precarious future – and just how much he misses his audience.

Director's Biography

Mi Ni Ni Aung (born in 1993) lives on Bilu Island, a delta island of the Salween River in Mon State, Myanmar. In 2014, she graduated from Mawlamyine University with a major in Chemistry. She studied journalism at Burma News International (BNI) in 2014, created a photo story about children’s rights for the Yangon Photo Festival in 2015, and then worked in media organisations as a freelance researcher, reporter and video journalist before joining YFS in 2022. Dancing with the Spirits is her first film as a director.

Director's Filmography

2023
Dancing with the Spirits

Director

18‘43‘‘

Pictures

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