The soldier’s mind was a turbulent sea of anxiety and resolve as he arrived at the abandoned battle camp, where the hasty departure of others left him grappling with solitude and the weight of his duty.
“I want to explore and build the drama just by showing the changes of non-living things without any human character. But it will not be the film made with the mood that is usually found in the regular documentary footage.
After the coup in Myanmar, I usually had to think about leaving my country and running away to a safer country with fewer problems. However, leaving is never really easy. It’s not like the whole country can relocate to get away from dictatorship. Most of us just licked our wounds and stayed behind. Do the people who left achieved real freedom? I’m always confused. After the coup, some of my poet friends picked up arms to join the people’s revolution. I, for various reasons, cannot do the same. So I stay put with guilt gnawing at me like a soldier who didn’t die in a battle that is already lost. This is how I live my life those days. With these feelings and emotions.
So I wrote this story. I am not a politician and not an activist. I just want to leave a trace of the mood of these contemporary days in the history of mankind.”
Biography
Lin Htet Aung (1998, Myanmar) is a self-taught filmmaker based in Myanmar. In his earlier days, he wrote avant-garde poems and published underground poetry books. In 2020, his experimental short film “Estate” won the Silver Screen Award for Best Director at the Southeast Asian Short Film Competition at the 31st Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF). In 2023, his short film “Once Upon A Time There Was A Mom” won the Silver Screen Award for Best Screenplay at the 34th SGIFF. His same short film won the Principi Award at Lago Film Fest and the Jury Prize at Bangkok ASEAN Film Festival (BAFF). His short films have been selected at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, LINOLEUM Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival, Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, among others. In 2024, he received a Script Development Fund for his debut feature project, “Making A Sea”, which won the Fellowship Prize at the Southeast Asian Film Lab at the Singapore International Film Festival 2023. He is one of the directing fellows for the CHANEL X BIFF Asian Film Academy 2023. He has also been nominated twice for SEA AiR Studio Residencies Cycle 1 and Cycle 2. He is also one of the Prince Claus Seed Awardees 2023 and a Locarno Filmmakers Academy 2024 participant.
