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Behind the Screen (2012)

Behind the Screen

The story of a Burmese marriage

March, 2014
Salaya Documentary Film Festival
BEST ASEAN DOCUMENTARY
Bangkok, Thailand
September, 2012
Wathann Film Fest #2
BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM
Yangon, Myanmar

Synopsis

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.

Director's Biography

Aung Nwai Htway is from Yangon. He began his career working for the NGO Population Services International (PSI) as an editor. Having joined Yangon Film School in 2006, in 2007 he tried his hand at directing for the first time with the short documentary A Piece of Eden, about a young boy suffering from muscular dystrophy. Developed with YFS, his 2012 documentary Behind the Screen is his most personal film and tells the painful story of his parents’ divorce, both of whom were Burmese film stars in the 1960s and 70s. This moving work won awards at Yangon’s Wathann Filmfest and at Salaya International Documentary Film Festival in Thailand; it also screened to acclaim at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.

Awards & Nominations

March, 2014
Salaya Documentary Film Festival
BEST ASEAN DOCUMENTARY
Bangkok, Thailand
September, 2012
Wathann Film Fest #2
BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM
Yangon, Myanmar

Screenings

April, 2018
Kineforum Southeast Asia Film Forum
Jakarta, Indonesia
June, 2015
RAI – International Festival of Ethnographic Film
London, England
March, 2015
Tampere Film Festival
Tampere, Finland
October, 2014
World Film Festival Bangkok
Bangkok, Thailand
June, 2014
International Documentary Film Festival
Hanoi, Vietnam
April, 2014
Chop Shots Film Festival ASEAN
Jakarta, Indonesia
November, 2013
IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
Amsterdam, Netherlands

Director's Filmography

2016
In Exile

Editor

72‘0‘‘

2013
Escape from the Dead End

Director/Cinematographer/Editor

25‘0‘‘

2012
Behind the Screen

xDirector/Editor/Screenwriter

35‘0‘‘

2010
Landing on the Beautiful Land

Director/Cinematographer/Sound/Editor

22‘0‘‘

2009
Our Forests, Our Future

Editor

23‘15‘‘

2008
Rays Of Hope

Director/Editor

15‘56‘‘

2008
After the Nargis

Editor

25‘0‘‘

2007

Director & Editor

15‘36‘‘

Pictures

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