Coquitlam Public Library

Behind the Screen

eng

videorecording

Behind the Screen

985768414

Originally produced by Yangon Film School in 2012

35

A son dissects his parents' marriage - they were film icons in 1960s Myanmar. It turns out the heartrending scenes they acted out on the silver screen are a pretty accurate reflection of their real lives. While the camera slides across the glamour photos from their heyday, the filmmaker looks on, entranced. He grapples with the incredible fame of his parents. Now that he is reconstructing their relationship, he sees the old film footage through different eyes - as if it might contain the answers he didn't get as a child, when his parents separated. ..This merging of family history and film excerpts creates a magical mix of fact and fiction, or - as the son calls it - "the real and the celluloid wedding." The son's public revelation of how things went wrong is an emancipatory act, as divorce is still a big taboo in Myanmar. But the filmmaker doesn't publically jump onto the barricades. Rather, he keeps things personal, showing the pain caused by the divorce, both for him as a child and for his parents. He also shows how, 50 years ago, ambitions in Myanmar in the area of film were in line with Hollywood: the first film his parents appeared in together was called Sweet Sixteen. ..Best Documentary Award at Wathann Film Fest2, Yangon, Myanmar, ..Best ASEAN Documentary Award at Salaya International Documentary Film Festival, Bangkok, Thailand

live action