Just A Boy YFS 5

Just A Boy

Synopsis

Teenager Okka Moe spends his days collecting rubbish in downtown Yangon in order to help pay off his family’s debt. A sensitive portrait of a caring boy who remains stoical in spite of his lot in life.

Director's Biography

Lay Thida was born in 1983 in Loikaw, Kayah state in eastern Myanmar. An English graduate of Taunggyi University, she joined the very first YFS  course in 2005. A regular sound recordist on YFS productions, her directorial debut Just A Boy earned her a Heinrich Boell Foundation Documentary Award in 2007. Her subsequent work includes portraits of an ex-poppy grower (A Farmer’s Tale, 2007), a young development worker (The Change Maker, 2008), and a hard-hitting documentary about domestic violence in Shan State (Unreported Story, 2011). In 2010, she received a Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship to attend a documentary course at the National Film and Television School in the United Kingdom, which culminated in the production of a short documentary, Wrong Side Up. A Fulbright scholar, she took an MA in Development in International Policy Studies in Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California in 2013 before returning to Myanmar in 2015 where she continued to make films for a range of clients in the development sector. Alongside her work as a filmmaker, Lay Thida also co-founded and ran an NGO, Better Life.

Screenings

November, 2011
Interfilm International Short Film Festival
Berlin, Germany

Director's Filmography

2011

12‘0‘‘

2011

Director/Editor

12‘22‘‘

2011

Director

18‘50‘‘

2009

Director/Editor

18‘45‘‘

2009
The Long Way Home

Director/Editor

8‘15‘‘

2009

23‘0‘‘

2008

Director/Editor

15‘59‘‘

2007

Director/Editor

18‘18‘‘

2007
The Merry Widows of Nam Mun Village

Sound Recordist

22‘22‘‘

2006

Sound Recordist

15‘20‘‘

2006
A Sketch of Wathone

Sound Recordist

15‘58‘‘

2006
The Uninvited Guest

Sound Recordist

13‘49‘‘

2006
Just A Boy

Director/Editor

13‘5‘‘

2005
Peace Of Mind

Sound Recordist

10‘11‘‘

Pictures

Just A Boy YFS 1
Just A Boy YFS 2
Just A Boy YFS 3
Just A Boy YFS 4
Just A Boy YFS 5
Just A Boy YFS 6
Just A Boy YFS 7
Just A Boy YFS 8