“Twilight over Burma: My Life as a Shan Princess” is based on the life of an Austrian woman named Inge Sargent who married a Shan Prince and lived something of a fairytale existence until the military coup in 1962.
Directed by an Austrian and screened on television in Europe, the film, which from the look of it is kind of TV-movie cheesy, was pulled from the Human Rights Human Dignity Film Festival last week.
“We were worried and afraid that unnecessary problems could arise because of this (film) while we are working on achieving national reconciliation,” Thida Tin, deputy chairman of the Ministry of Information’s 15-member film review committee, told AFP.
But thanks to the internet, you can watch the film here. Links have circulated online. We have embedded a version below.
Thida Tin said the film board was concerned about ruffling feathers while Suu Kyi’s administration prepares for a major peace dialogue with ethnic rebel groups, who have fought lengthy civil wars with the national army and accuse it of rampant rights abuses.
Conflicts continue to rage in several border regions after a ceasefire pact signed last year failed to include all of the country’s fighters.
The censorship will come as a disappointment to many in Myanmar’s budding film community, where there were hopes that Suu Kyi’s leadership would usher in a new era of artistic freedom.
“It is the first time in four years one of our films didn’t pass the censorship committee,” the festival’s founder, Min Htin Ko Ko Gyi, told AFP.
Under the junta all books, films and news reports were vetted for content considered inflammatory or damaging to the regime.
The former semi-civilian government that ended outright junta rule in 2011 lifted a number of censorship laws and web restrictions.
But criticism of the army remains a sensitive subject as it is still a powerful presence in Myanmar, with control over key ministries and a quarter of parliament seats.
Main text / AFP
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