Busan Competition Film ‘MA – Cry of Silence’ Picked up by Alpha Violet

“MA – Cry of Silence,” a topical drama film from Myanmar, which will debut in the Busan festival’s New Currents main competition, has been picked up by Franco-Japanese sales firm Alpha Violet.

With Myanmar’s civil war now in its third year, the film tracks Mi-Thet, a young Burmese woman employed in a garment factory in Yangon. For the past two months, wages have not been paid and a group of female workers, led by the young Nyein-Nyein, get organized to claim. Mi-Thet, whose family disappeared during previous uprisings is reluctant, but eventually joins the strike due to an emergency situation.

The film is the second feature to be directed by The Maw Naing who debuted in 2014 with “The Monk.” Maw Naing studied filmmaking at the Yangon Film School in 2005 and FAMU Prague in 2008. Living and working in Myanmar, he is also a poet and artist.

Structured as a Myanmar, Singapore, France, Norway, South Korea, Qatar co-production, the film 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).

Other credits go to cinematographer  Tin Win Maing; line producer:  Aung Min Soe and chief sound editor and sound design, Mathieu Farnarier.

The Busan International Film Festival disclosed its selections for the New Currents and Jiseok competition sections earlier this week. Its full lineup will be unveiled on Tuesday. The festival runs Oct. 2-11.