Synopsis
Eleven-year-old Yarzar wants nothing more than to go to school. But growing up in rural poverty with an absentee father and a mother who works her fingers to the bone, Yarzar is needed at home to catch eels to sell at market and to work in the paddy fields. He saves every kyat he can to achieve his dream, doubling his efforts when his little brother announces that he wants to go to school too. But disaster strikes when the family's hut is hit by a cyclone. The film is inspired by the real-life children the screenwriter encountered in the remote village of Apyauk where the story is set – where education plays an essential role in helping to try and combat poverty in the next generation.
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Credits
Director: Soe Moe Aung
Producer: Shin Daewe
Camera: Khin Maung Kyaw
Camera Assistant: Htet Aung San
Sound Recordist: Mya Darli Aung
Boom Op: Slyne
Editors: Zaw Naing Oo & Soe Moe Aung
Screenwriter & 1st AD: Su Su Hlaing
Production Manager: Su San Zaw Win
Production Assistant: Pan Thakhin
Project Mentors: Rachel Mathews, Tina Walinda, Lars Barthel, Ivan Horák, Regina Bärtschi
Categories
Technical Details
Duration: 15‘19‘‘
16:9 Anamorphic
DVD PAL
English Subtitles
2015
Copyright
Yangon Film School
Director's Biography
Soe Moe Aung (born in 1985) is from Hmawbi, a town about 30 kilometres northwest of Myanmar’s former capital of Yangon. Having trained as an audio technician and radio announcer, he worked for a number of local stations and also wrote drama for radio before joining Yangon Film School in 2012. His first short YFS documentary, Insein Rhythm, premiered at Visions du réel international documentary film festival in Nyon in Switzerland in 2013; his short drama, Next Month, won an award at the Wathann Film Festival in Yangon in 2013. He has since directed another short fictional work, To School which was produced during a Yangon Film School course, as was A Man for All Seasons.
Awards & Nominations
March, 2015
Screenings
Director's Filmography
Director
15‘19‘‘
Director
4‘0‘‘
Director
3‘20‘‘
Director
7‘35‘‘
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Screenwriter Su Su Hlaing is a young Yangon-based writer of short stories and articles who also works as a journalist for one of the city's burgeoning radio stations. She encountered a boy like Yarzar in Apyauk whilst visiting relatives in the area and wrote the script for To School during the 2012 YFS Art of Screenwriting course. Su Su Hlaing is a winner of the inaugural YFS Screenwriting Competition and is currently developing Splash, a feature length screenplay about Wa Toke, a young street kid who falls into the clutches of a Fagin-like figure and becomes addicted to glue – a growing problem amongst homeless children in Yangon.
