“MA – Cry of Silence,” a current affairs drama from Myanmar making its debut in the main competition of Busan’s New Currents festival, has been picked up by French-Japanese sales company Alpha Violet.
Now in its third year of civil war, the film follows Mi-Thet, a young Burmese woman working in a garment factory in Yangon. After two months of no wages, a group of female workers, led by a young woman named Nyein-Nyein, organize to claim them. Mi-Thet, whose family disappeared during previous uprisings, hesitates but eventually joins the strike because of an emergency.
The film is the second feature film directed by The Maw Naing, who made his debut in 2014 with "The Monk". Maw Naing studied filmmaking at Yangon Film School in 2005 and FAMU Prague in 2008. He lives and works in Myanmar and is also a poet and artist.
The film is a co-production between Myanmar, Singapore, France, Norway, South Korea and Qatar and is produced by Maw Naing (One Point Zero) and screenwriter Oh Young Jeong (Plus Point One). Co-producers include Jeremy Chua (of Singapore's Potocol), Charlotte Guénin (Massala), Marie Fuglestein Lægreid, Ingrid Lill Høgtun and Linda Bolstad Strønen (DUO Film) and Jean-Baptiste Bailly-Maitre (Alpha Violet Production).
