Synopsis
A middle-aged Buddhist man recalls his lifelong friendship with a Muslim colleague at the Red Cross and reveals how Buddhists and Muslims worked together in the aftermath of the devastating cyclone Nargis.
Filmmaker's Biographies
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Aye Mya Hlaing
Aye Mya Hlaing grew up in Yangon. Before joining YFS in 2016, she worked as a video journalist for a local online media company where she made 500 reports in the space of 18 months. She says she enrolled at YFS ‘to tell emotional stories that go beyond journalism’. Having directed The Animal Lover about Yangon’s stray dogs in her first year at YFS and The Peacekeeper about an IDP camp in Kachin State in her second year, she then co-created Riding Through the Waves, an animated documentary about the struggle for social harmony between people of different faiths. A passionate advocate of ‘participatory video’, she has also joined YFS Travelling Cinema Crews in Kayah and Kachin states and in Mandalay Division where she co-facilitated participatory video workshops with local communities. In 2020, Aye Mya Hlaing was appointed as YFS Travelling Cinema & Outreach Coordinator and she now oversees the School’s many outreach projects.
Seint Yamone Htoo
Seint Yamone Htoo was born in Yangon in 1991 and graduated with a maths major before studying the violin at the National University of Arts and Culture. She subsequently worked as a reporter for CNB News (Mandalay) and a video journalist for the Up To Date online channel for almost five years before joining YFS in 2018. During her studies at the School, she has worked on a number of collaborative projects, including the animated documentary Riding Through the Waves. Made entirely from textiles, the film describes the protagonist’s memories of peaceful co-existence between people of different religions and ethnicities in his home town in the Ayeyarwaddy delta. Seint Yamone Htoo has also co-directed a short fictional film Midtown Yangon which features a non-professional cast. Kachin Reporter for which she received a Goethe-Institut Myanmar documentary award, was her first documentary as a director. She is currently working on her graduation film with the working title The Village by the Sea.
