2006

Synopsis

Teenager Okka Moe spends his days collecting rubbish in downtown Yangon in order to help pay off his family’s debt. A sensitive portrait of a caring boy who remains stoical in spite of his lot in life.

Credits

Director: Lay Thida
Camera: Thu Thu Shein
Sound: Myo Min Khin
Editor: Lay Thida

Biography

Lay Thida was born in 1983 in Loikaw, Kayah state in eastern Myanmar. An English graduate (Taunggyi University), she joined the YFS in 2005. A regular sound recordist on YFS productions, her directorial debut Just A Boy earned her a Heinrich Boell Foundation Documentary Award in 2007. Her subsequent work includes portraits of an ex-poppy grower

(A Farmer’s Tale, 2007) and a young development worker (The Change Maker, 2008), and a short documentary about domestic violence in Shan State (Unreported Story, 2011). In 2010 she received a Charles Wallace Trust Fellowship to attend a documentary course at the National Film and Television School in the United Kingdom, which culminated in the production of a short documentary, Wrong Side Up. Alongside her work as a filmmaker she has co-founded the Myanmar-based NGO Better-Life, which supports in particular children, women and most vulnerable people in Myanmar.

Filmography (selection)

2005     Peace Of Mind (10’11”, sound recordist)
2006     A Million Threads (15’20”, sound recordist)
2006     A Sketch of Wathone (14’58”,sound recordist)
2006     The Uninvited Guest (13’49”, sound recordist)
2006     Just A Boy (13’05”, director and editor)
2007     A Farmer’s Tale (18’17”, director and editor)
2007     The Merry Widows of Nam Mun Village (22’22”, sound recordist)
2008     The Change Maker (15’59”, director and editor)
2009     Listen to Us (18’43”, director and editor)
2009     The Long Way Home (8’15”, director and editor)
2009     Our Forests, Our Future (23’15”, sound recordist)
2011      Unreported Story (12′, director)
2011      Wrong Side Up (12’22”, director and editor)
2011      Bungkus (The Parcel) (18’50”, director)

Screening History (selection)

November 2011 Interfilm International Short Film Festival, Weitblick Südostasien section, Berlin, Germany