European Film Festival in Myanmar
22nd of September to 1st of October
The European Film Festival was organized for the first time in 1991 by a small group of embassies in Yangon. It was set up as an alternative to the state propaganda under the military dictatorship and functioned as a window on the rest of the world. Today, after 26 years in existence, the European Film Festival has still not lost its special status. Now, instead of providing an alternative to the very limited and manipulated cinema of the past, its aim is to bring artistically more interesting movies to Myanmar as a counterweight to the usual blockbusters from Hollywood and Bollywood.
This year again, exceptional themes find their way to the cinema screen. The Polish contribution takes us back to the Stalinist dictatorship in Eastern Europe and its suppression of international modernism by enforcing Socialist Realism on the arts and the artists. Others take on more contemporary issues, often reflecting critically the situation in the countries of their origin: the Swedish and Italian films, for instance, point out the negative consequences of capitalism, the Finnish film takes a critical stance on the responses to the huge European refugee crisis