Time: 16.00 – Saturday October 3, 2015
Cinema 4
Screening with: Irrawaddy Mon Amour
60 min
Nederland 2015
Burmese and English with English subtitles
Myanmar has only just been freed from the military dictatorship at the end of 2011, when a new feud between the buddhist majority and the muslim minority occurs. In 2013 the violence against muslims spread across the whole country. Under extremist buddhhist monks’ eyes dozens of muslims get killed and thousands of them become displaced. Filmmaker Kay Mastenbroek sets out to investigate the causes and effects of the sudden outbreak of antimuslim sentiment. He focusses on two activists who each fight the violence in their own manner, the 25 years old activist/filmmaker Htuu Lou Rae and the 56 years old buddhist monk U Panda Wathra. Htuu started his Coexist campaign in the summer of 2013 and is now making a documentary on the offenders and victims of the religious conflict. His main goal is to have an interview with U Wirathu. This monk became the face of the Buddhist violence abroad by making the frontpages of Time Magazine with the headline ‘Buddhist Terror’. U Panda wants the Buddhist community to close the ranks and to renounce violence against muslims for once and for all. In a roadtrip style Mastenbroek follows the two men in their fight. At the end of the film the paths of U Panda and Htuu cross. Whether their mission will be successful remains to be seen.
Director/camera/editor: Kay Mastenbroek – Producer: Electrical Films – Producer Myanmar: Yakov Aung Naing Soo – Production BOS: Mascha Wiggelman, Monique Rutgers – Postproduction: Jaap Verdenius – Commissioning editors BOS: Laetitia Schoofs, Tamara Vuurmans