Play/Pause
Play trailer
Shifting Sands (2021)

Shifting Sands

Migration from the countryside to the big city in Myanmar

November, 2021
20th Tiburon International Film Festival
Tiburon Golden Reel Award for Best Documentary Short
California, USA

Synopsis

Every year, thousands of young people flock to Yangon from Myanmar’s rural dry zone to work in the factories that have sprung up on the outskirts of the country’s former capital. Ma Nwet Yin Win is one of them. She and her sister left their home on an alluvial island in the Ayeyarwaddy River twenty years ago. Climate change has made life there difficult, but fighting for workers’ rights in Yangon is no less daunting.

Director's Biography

Born in 1996 in Yangon to parents from the Rakhine and Inn ethnic groups, May Thyn Kyi studied journalism and photojournalism and then began working for a local news agency in 2018 before writing and creating photo stories for various women’s organisations. Eager to learn about the moving image, she enrolled at Yangon film School in 2020. She has since worked on a number of documentary and animation projects including Yellow’s Happiness and also joined a Travelling Cinema crew in Kengtung in Shan State as a participatory video facilitator. Her directing debut Shifting Sands has screened to acclaim at a number of international festivals. She has since directed Being Mon about a young gay doctor in Mawlamyine who has a passion for the arts. Made with funding from the Goethe Institut Myanmar, her animated film about sex workers Exit was presented at the exhibition ‘Shi’.

Awards & Nominations

November, 2021
20th Tiburon International Film Festival
Tiburon Golden Reel Award for Best Documentary Short
California, USA
May, 2022
Jean Rouch Film Festival
Nomination for Best International Documentary
Paris, France
March, 2022
Watersprite International Student Short Film Festival
Nomination for Best Social Impact Film
Cambridge, England
August, 2021
Bozcaada International Festival of Ecological Documentary
Nomination for GAIA Student Award
Bozcaada, Turkey

Screenings

August, 2023
Climate of Cinema: Isles and the Planet
Busan, South Korea
August, 2021
Seoul International Women’s Film Festival
Seoul, South Korea
June, 2021
Ischia Film Festival
World Premiere
Ischia, Italy

Director's Filmography

2022
Exit

Director

8‘0‘‘

2021
Shifting Sands

Director

14‘31‘‘

Pictures

Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands
Shifting Sands