A Myanmar actress in detention wins the highest prize at the German Film Festival

[ASEAN NOW Content Team]

 

Eaindra Kyaw Zin, a Myanmar actress who is now imprisoned, has won the Best Performance Award at the Oldenburg International Film Festival in Germany.

In early April, the well-known actress was detained and imprisoned for anti-regime activities, and she is now serving her 164th day in Yangon's Insein Prison, with thousands of other political detainees.

 

For the melodrama What Happened to the Wolf?, she received the Seymour Cassel Best Performance Award.
The film stars Eaindra Kyaw Zin and fellow Myanmar Motion Picture Academy Award winner Paing Phyoe Thu as two ladies who meet and fall in love while patients at a terminally ill hospital.

The festival director Torsten Neumann and others wore t-shirts in honour of the jailed actress at the Oldenburg International Film Festival's opening ceremony on September 15.

 

Eaindra Kyaw Zin is one of Myanmar's most visible proponents of the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM).
Her spouse, Pyay Ti Oo, is also a well-known actor, and they were both detained.
For their opposition to the military dictatorship, the two might face three years in prison for sedition.

Following the junta's February 1 coup, the pair, who are rumoured to be Myanmar's highest-paid actors, joined street protests demanding a return to democracy.
They advised civil servants to join the CDM rather than serve for the regime.

 

Na Gyi, who directed and produced the picture before the coup, is the director and producer of What Happened to the Wolf.
After arrest warrants for sedition were issued for Na Gyi and his wife Paing Phyoe Thu for allegedly utilising their celebrity profile to oppose the coup, the couple went into hiding.
Two other actors in the film, Kyaw Htet Aung and Aung Myint Myat, are also hiding.

The Seymour Cassel Award for Best Performance was also nominated for Paing Phyoe Thu.