Ashin Yevata

Ashin Yevata, a humble monk from Burma (Myanmar), helped lead the massive protests that spread throughout the country calling for change. Burma is one of the poorest countries in the world, strangled by its own despotic government. Forced labor, torture and systematic genocide are practiced by the ruthless Junta. Ashin was able to escape to the Burma-Thai border, where thousands of Burmese refugees live in fear of deportation and at the will of a corrupt police. He gathered footage from what he and his friends had as well as what he could find on the news.

Street art, creativity and revolution collide in this beautifully shot film about art’s ability to create change. The story opens on the politically charged Thailand/Burma border at the first school teaching street art as a form of non-violent struggle. The film follows two young girls (Romi &amp; Yi-Yi) who have escaped 50 years of civil war in Burma to pursue an arts education in Thailand. Under the threat of imprisonment and torture, the girls use spray paint and stencils to create images in public spaces to let people know the truth behind Burma's transition toward "artificial democracy." Eighty-two hundred miles away, artist Shepard Fairey is painting a 30’ mural of a Burmese monk for the same reasons and in support of the students' struggle in Burma. As these stories are inter-cut, the film connects these seemingly unrelated characters around the concept of using art as a weapon for change.

This film records the Japanese military's efforts to capture the Burma Road,one of the major supply lines to China, from the British beginning in December 1941. The film ends with the fall of Mandalay in May 1942.

Insein Rhythm portrays the sights, sounds and rhythms of Yangon’s Insein train station which is also a stone’s throw away from the country’s infamous Insein prison.

Chris Marker’s A Grin Without a Cat is an epic political essay tracing the rise and decline of the global left from the 1960s to the 1970s. Through archival footage and commentary, the film examines revolutionary movements in France, Latin America, and beyond, reflecting on the ideals, failures, and fading hopes of a generation.

Two young Swiss bankers decide to break out of their gilded cage. They leave their promising careers as managers behind and found a relief organisation for underprivileged children in Southeast Asia. In order to finance their humanitarian projects, they put to use not only their know-how from the world of finance, but also the international network they developed as bankers. The glamour world of European metropolises meets the jungle in the Mekong Delta. A reflection on the meaning of life and happiness in life.

A fascinating documentary, shot in the mountainous north of Burma. No filmmaker is welcome there, because, against the background of a civil war, the jade miners enter the deserted mines illegally. With the aid of filming locals, however, Midi Z was able to compile this portrait. Getting rich quick turns out to be hard and risky work  Jade has always been a valuable commodity in Asia. In the mountains in the north of Burma there are valuable deposits of jade. The area forms part of Kachin State, inhabited by many ethnic groups which found themselves embroiled in the Civil War in 2010 with the Burmese government. Jade mining was halted because of the conflict. Thousands of workers, however, went to the war zone in order to dig for illegal jade. It turned the region into a no-go area and the filmmaker Midi Z, who had so far made feature films in Burma, saw no opportunity to go and film there. It was far too dangerous.  © iffr.com

Moving to Mars charts the epic journey made by two Burmese families from a vast refugee camp on the Thai/Burma border to their new homes in the UK. At times hilarious, at times emotional, their travels provide a fascinating and unique insight not only into the effects of migration, but also into one of the most important current political crises - Burma.

Sittwe is about two teenagers separated by conflict and segregation in Burma's Rakhine state, Phyu Phyu Than, a Rohingya girl and Aung San Myint, a Buddhist boy. Both youth saw their homes burned down during communal violence in 2012. Phyu Phyu Than is confined in an apartheid-style camp and has no chance to go to school or travel to her home just a few miles away. Aung San Myint's family struggles to survive and support his high school studies to fulfill his dream to go to medical school. Interviews filmed over two years with the teenagers reveal their ideas about each other's communities and the hope of reconciliation.