Synopsis
Thant Zin came to Yangon with his brother around three years ago. He may have been twelve years old at the time, but he can’t really remember. After finding him a job at a car wash, his brother returned to their village, leaving Thant Zin behind. He has not been back since. Deeply unhappy in his badly paid job, and fed up with sleeping under a torn mosquito net in a dark and dingy room, Thant longs to go home – but he doesn’t remember where his village is, or even what it is called. A sensitively filmed short documentary about how one boy tries to cope with loneliness and abandonment – a fate shared by many children and young adults migrating from rural Myanmar to the city in search of work and a better life.
Director's Biography
Shin Thandar (born in 1991) is from Sittwe in Rakhine State in northwest Myanmar. Having studied English at Yangon’s University of Foreign Languages and gaining a diploma in Information Technology, she worked in the news department of national broadcaster MNTV and as a communications assistant for the World Bank for almost five years before joining YFS in 2018. During her studies at the School, she was a member of the creative team behind both the docuanimation Our Town and the ‘true fictions’ short Midtown Yangon. Made in her second year at YFS, Worlds Apart portrays a Hindu couple in restive Rakhine State and won a Goethe-Institut Ruby Documentary Award in 2019. Shin Thandar is currently working on her graduation project, also set in Rakhine. Alongside her studies, she uses her filmmaking skills as a development worker, promoting access to health, education and jobs. Lost Boy was her first documentary as a director.
Awards & Nominations
Screenings
Director's Filmography
Director
15‘54‘‘
