Marionette master U Sein Aye Myint has practised his art for more than forty years, continuing the traditional skills passed down from his father. But the Covid pandemic and the military coup have prevented him and his puppets from performing. When the roof of his small workshop in Yangon’s North Dagon starts leaking in the monsoon, he has to clamber up to fix it himself to ensure his beloved puppets do not get wet. Observing him with age-old wisdom in their eyes, his puppets seem to sense all the things that are weighing heavily on his mind: his lack of income, his precarious future – and just how much he misses his audience.
A young Burmese woman who was trafficked to China and sold into marriage tells her story. Based on the real-life protagonist’s words and beautifully rendered in pen-and-ink, this animation portrays a woman torn between her love for the child she was forced to bear and her longing for the country to which she may never be able to return.
The breasts are in place, the feathers are smoothed, off to the date! Her daughter does not comprehend the ritual of desire yet … Erotically crude, with pointed beaks in the conflicts.
I grew up in Yangon. In February 2021, my dreams came to an end. My mother said: “Son, wake up. The military has taken over the country”. The days got darker. The window in my narrow room and the piece of sky I watched seemed to be the only freedom I had left. I wanted to say something about this new undercurrent in my life. I wrote things down, recorded my voice, and searched for images that might reflect my feelings and those of other young people. And now there is a film which conveys what it's like to lose the ground beneath your feet.
The director, a stateless Filipino, returns to his native country. For more than twenty years, he lived without papers in the USA and feels trapped in a world full of borders.
A poetic essay film through the lens of an undocumented immigrant becoming disillusioned by their future in the United States and deciding to return to an estranged homeland. Nowhere Near tracks down the origin of a family curse backtracking through the post 9/11 era, the US occupation of the Philippines and the spiritual conquest of the Spanish empire. The film is a years-long diary towards understanding the causes of migration to the United States, though ultimately this odyssey deviates far from the expected course.
Built in the 19th century, this Tamil Hindu temple in Thanlyin, across the Bago River from Yangon, is unique in the largely Buddhist Myanmar: this is a place where people from different religious backgrounds come to pray in the hope that their wishes will be fulfilled. Fortune-teller “Yellow Mother” is one of four inhabitants of Pilikan village who – in between lively spectacles of leaping cows and cow-catching – explain what the temple and its rituals mean to them.
Daniel Medina, a Wixárika indigenous musician, embarks on a unique collaboration with composer Philip Glass in which they share their traditional music with eager audiences.
A Place Called Music is a documentary about the peculiar musical encounter between Daniel Medina, a traditional Wixarika violinist from the mountains of Jalisco, Mexico, and Philip Glass, the eminent composer from New York City.
The documentary features live music as rehearsals and performances take place in prominent venues in Mexico and New York – music that has only been heard in ceremonial Wixárika gatherings but this time has an unprecedented addition: a grand piano.
Even though Daniel and Philip come from very different backgrounds and don't even speak the same language, they have created a common place where their spirits can meet and unravel each other – their music.
Shan folk singer Nan Mya was a star when she was young. Her metaphorical verses reflect the deep sense of loss that pervades a people battered by Myanmar's ruinous politics.
Shan State in Myanmar is home to a rich culture filled with ancient songs, traditional dances and beliefs. It is also a place where civil war has been raging for over sixty years. Shan folk singer Nan Mya Han was a star when she was young. Now she is older, her metaphorical verses reflect the deep sense of loss that pervades a people battered by Myanmar's ruinous politics. Interweaving her songs with compelling scenes of rituals around healing, death and birth, the film transcends the purely observational to become a multilayered, elliptical exploration of decay and impermanence that is both moving and totally mesmerising.
The Lisu people's bond with nature is a profoundly spiritual one. The harvest season may have come to an end but the souls of villagers have a habit of lingering in the fields.
The Lisu people's bond with nature is a profoundly spiritual one. Theirs is a world that is filled with the spirits of the forests and mountains where they live and farm. The harvest season may have come to an end but the souls of many a villager have a habit of lingering in the fields of the uplands where they can cause all kinds of mischief. This richly atmospheric exploration of Lisu animism brings us closer to the mellifluous-voiced shaman Byar Wu, whose job it is to summon these lost souls back into the bodies of his community in Chaung Gyi village in Shan State and by doing so prevent sickness and disease.
DOK Industry is realised with the support of Creative Europe MEDIA Programme of the European Union, the Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media upon a Decision of the German Bundestag.