Synopsis

Four women share the same dormitory room near the factory area of Yangon. They all come from remote villages, and moved to the city to work. They are Mi Thet (19), Sa Phay (21), Ei Lay (14) and Khin Su (23). Mi Thet and Sa Phay work at a garment factory, but haven’t been paid for months. When the women workers’ strike starts, Mi Thet joins the strike, hoping to retrieve the money that she will then send to her family. Sa Phay decides to keep working, thinking that this is the only way to save money, get educated and help her family. Mi Thet realizes that the strike is not helping her in her goal, and she is unfairly dismissed by the factory against her will. When coming out of the strike camp, she is raped on the road by a biker. Ei Lay works night shift at an ex-military general house as housemaid. Despite her master’s son attempts to rape her, she continues working in the house as a carer for the grandmother. With her new job in the house, her life changes. Khin Su is 8 months pregnant and is employed as a room maid in a hotel. After losing contact with her husband, who works on a shing boat in Thailand, Khin Su gives birth alone. Ei Lay starts looking for a way to become independent. The four women are gradually choosing their future paths. Some people disappear slowly into the dark and some other come out slowly.

Director‘s Note

Before the election in Myanmar in 2015, I lived under the military dictatorship. This closed system deformed our society. During that time, I was experiencing many negative emotions such as repression, fear, unfairness, anger, shame, disgust toward my society. During the student’s democracy movement in 1988 I printed and spread yers. At that time I was in high school. In that period, I lost many acquaintances and friends. For a long time, I saw how people are cruel, how people endure their everyday life while suffering in our closed society. Naturally, my current work has focused on ordinary people who suffer in their everyday life. They are weak or strong, passive or aggressive, they keep silent or speak out loud. During my life, I saw various kinds of disparity, and my interest for the interaction of individual psychology, people’s behavior and influence of society has gradually grown stronger. Indeed, my film tells the story of ordinary women working in Myanmar - four different women living in the same room. Even though they are smart, they can’t get proper education. Despite working hard and keeping their hope high, they can’t escape from poverty. Their lives are not strongly connected, but from their present, we can see their past and future. I will portray them starting from their physical environment to their inner landscape, which is influenced by the several problems in the local society.

 

Production Company Profile

One Point Zero was founded in 2011 in Yangon by The Maw Naing. We produce short and feature-length documentaries and fictions based on social and political issues in Myanmar, and look for international collaboration to promote this kind of cinema from our region. Our works include The Clinic by Aung Min and The Monk by The Maw Naing in 2014, which was co-produced with FAMU, Czech Republic. Among our next projects, The Maw Maing’s second feature The Women, and a feature documentary by Tin Win Naing.

Selected Filmography

Than Gyap by The Maw Naing (Documentary, 90’, 2018, work in progress)

The Monk by The Maw Naing (Fiction, 93’, 2014)

The Clinic by Aung Min (Documentary, 21’, 2011)