When the military coup in Myanmar happened in February 2021, artists from all over the country, including Oldenburg alumni Na Gyi and Paing Phyo Thu, took to the streets to express their opposition to military rule. Now forced into hiding and exile, they will be honored with a special tribute at the 31st Oldenburg International Film Festival to draw public attention to Myanmar.
Within days of the coup, peaceful demonstrations in Myanmar swelled to hundreds of thousands of people. A photograph of Paing Phyo Thu holding up the three-finger salute — a symbol from Hunger Games which became the leitmotif of the democracy movement — went viral and the photo, captured by freelance photographer Anonymous, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
On April 3, a warrant was issued for the couple’s arrests for “using their popularity” to encourage civil servants to participate in protests against the military junta that had seized control of the government. Facing indefinite prison time and torture, they were forced into hiding but remained defiant. “There’s no turning back,” stated Paing. “We decided we’re going to do this, and we will fight to the end.”
Just a month earlier, in the interval between the coup and the arrest warrants, the Oldenburg International Film Festival had received the submission of a film from Myanmar entitled What Happened to the Wolf? It was directed by Na Gyi and starred Paing and fellow actress Eaindra Kyaw Zin as two terminally ill patients who meet and fall in love. Although not political in nature, the topic of LBGTQ+ in and of itself was still a cause for persecution in Myanmar.
The film had its world premiere in Oldenburg that September, and the online trailer received over one million hits on the festival’s Facebook page. Eaindra received the 2021 Seymour Cassel Award for Best Actress but was unable to attend, as by then she had been in prison for six months for her celebrity participation in the demonstrations. There was no word of her condition.
As death threats mounted for them and other artists, journalists and rebels, Na Gyi and Paing Phyo Thu made the difficult decision to flee their homeland of Myanmar. After months of journeying through dangerous territory, once safe and from an undisclosed location in a nearby country, they co-founded The Artists Shelter to support Myanmar artists in exile.
Oldenburg’s 2024 tribute will include their first feature film collaboration, Mi (2019), a film adaptation of the famous Myanmar novel by Ki Aye in which Paing stars as an irreverent and carefree young woman dying of tuberculosis. Set in the 1940’s, the film was a huge audience hit and won critical praise, though it was ignored by the Myanmar Academy.
Their second feature film collaboration in 2021, What Happened to the Wolf?, will once again screen in the tribute, as will their three short films Guilt, Our Tur, and My Lost Nation.
In honoring Na Gyi and Paing Phyo Thu with the 2024 Honorary Tribute Award, the festival has issued the following statement: “We feel passionate about their artistry and all they stand for and would love to use our platform to support awareness of their work. That also includes the extraordinary and ongoing efforts of The Artists Shelter, which they co-founded.”
After more than two years in exile, the filmmaking couple had hoped to receive travel documents and were looking forward to attending Oldenburg as the Tribute Honorees. Unfortunately, as of today, they still remain in a perilous limbo of bureaucracy and international politics.
