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Oldenburg Festival Announces Competition Lineup, Honors Exiled Filmmakers
The Oldenburg Film Festival, Germany’s leading indie movie event, will this year honor the dissident filmmakers Na Gyi and Paing Phyo Thu. The Myanmar director and actress have been in hiding for over three years due to their public opposition to the military coup in Myanmar, which began on February 1, 2021.
Oldenburg first highlighted the couple’s plight in their 2021 festival, featuring the world premiere of Na Gyi’s What Happened to the Wolf? The film, starring Paing Phyo Thu and Eaindra Kyaw Zin, tells the story of a gay romance between two terminally ill women. While not overtly political, its LGBTQ+ storyline drew ire from Myanmar’s ruling military regime. This film had been submitted to the festival after the coup but before the filmmakers went into hiding. The trailer garnered over a million views on Oldenburg’s Facebook page. Eaindra Kyaw Zin even won the festival’s Seymour Cassel Award for best actress but could not receive it in person, as she was imprisoned in Myanmar for participating in protests.
Before the coup, Na Gyi and Paing Phyo Thu were celebrated figures in Myanmar cinema. Na Gyi is one of the country’s most acclaimed directors, and Paing Phyo Thu is a Myanmar Academy Award-winning actress. The couple joined the protests against the military coup, with a photo of Paing holding a three-finger salute—borrowed from The Hunger Games films—going viral. On April 3, arrest warrants were issued against them for allegedly using their popularity to encourage civil servants to join the protests.
Facing potential imprisonment and torture, the couple chose to go into hiding in an undisclosed location in a neighboring country. From their hidden location, they have co-founded The Artists Shelter to support Myanmar artists in exile. “There’s no turning back,” Paing stated. “We decided we’re going to do this, and we will fight to the end.”
Oldenburg’s tribute to the couple will include screenings of What Happened to the Wolf? and their initial collaborative feature film, Mi (2019). Based on a well-known Myanmar novel by Ki Aye, Mi is set in the 1940s and stars Paing as a carefree young woman dying of tuberculosis. The film was both a critical and commercial success in Myanmar. Additionally, Oldenburg will screen three of Na Gyi’s short films starring Paing: Guilt, Our Turn, and My Lost Nation. All screenings will be free to audiences in Oldenburg, with donations accepted to support The Artists Shelter.
In other news, Oldenburg has announced several competition films for the 2024 event, taking place between September 11-14. Notable highlights include Quentin Dupieux’s meta-comedy The Second Act, which premiered at Cannes, and Edgar Pêra’s Telegraphic Letters, a Locarno entry. Vincent Grashaw’s Bang Bang, a Tribeca film featuring Tim Blake Nelson, will also be in competition. Nelson, known for his role in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, will appear in the upcoming Captain America: Brave New World reprising his role as Samuel Sterns from 2008’s The Incredible Hulk.
Among the world premieres at Oldenburg are Flieg Steil, a German drama by Martina Schöne-Radunsk and Lana Cooper, and James, a noir comedy by Canadian filmmaker Max Train. Hala Matar’s Elektra, starring Maria Bakalova, will have its German premiere in the competition. Three, a psychological drama directed by Nayla Al Khaja and set in the United Arab Emirates, will celebrate its European premiere at the festival.
The 2024 competition titles also include Michael J. Long’s family drama Baby Brother, Mitzi Peirone’s horror thriller Saint Clare, Saralisa Volm’s drama Am Ende der Wahrheit, starring German actress Maria Furtwängler, and Jake Remington’s debut feature $$$, which blends verité documentary footage with a guerilla shoot to explore New York’s underground scene.
Source: Source names
