Shin Daewe
Shin Daewe (Burmese: ရှင်ဒေဝီ; born Cho Cho Hnin (Burmese: ချိုချိုနှင်း) in 1973) is a Burmese documentary filmmaker. She is one of the pioneering female documentary filmmakers in Myanmar.[1][2][3][4] She was named in The Irrawaddy's list of "Inspiring Women of Burma".[5]
Career
[edit]Shin Daewe was an active activist, involved in many protests in the 8888 Uprising. She was jailed for one month in 1990 and one year in 1991 for her involvement in demonstrations. While studying at Rangoon University, she initially wrote poems and works of fiction that were published in magazines during the 1990s. However, she was also fascinated by the medium of film. Between 1997 and 2000, Shin Daewe worked as an assistant producer at Audio Visual (AV) Media, which was Burma's first private documentary film company.[6][7] In 2006, she married street photographer Ko Oo, who later became her close collaborator as cinematographer.[8]
She began her film career in 2007 after attending a workshop at the Yangon Film School, a non-profit organization based in Berlin. Having worked as a video journalist with the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) between 2005 and 2010, Shin Daewe was present during the 2007 Saffron Revolution and had been inspired by Anders Østergaard's Danish documentary Burma VJ, which received unprecedented exposure among the Burmese public for a documentary film.[9][6] One of Shin Daewe's most renowned works is her 2008 documentary An Untitled Life, which follows the story of a Mandalay-based sculptor named Rahula.[10] Her other successful film, Brighter Future, depicts the story of Phaung Daw Oo Monastic Education High School in Mandalay and won the Best Documentary award at the Art of Freedom Film Festival, in 2009. Her film Take Me Home, which is a story about ethnic Kachin villagers who were displaced by conflict in northern Burma, won the Wathan Film Festival in 2014.[6][11]
In 2013, Shin Daewe directed a 15-minute documentary titled Now I'm 13, which depicts the struggles of a teenage girl from central Burma who was deprived of educational opportunities due to poverty. This documentary earned her the Silver Award at the Kota Kinabalu International Film Festival and the Award for Best Documentary at the Wathann Film Festival in 2014. She also documented the student protests against Burma's National Education Bill in 2015. She has made more than 15 short documentaries that have been shown at international film festivals.[12]
Her videoreport “Ayeyarwady Riverbank Erosion”, showing anthropogenic climate change consequences in Myanmar, won 2024 Grace Awards.[13]
2023 arrest
[edit]On 15 October 2023, Shin Daewe was arrested by soldiers of the Myanmar military at the Aung Mingalar bus terminal in Yangon after they found a drone in her luggage. On 10 January 2024, she was imprisoned for life at the Insein Prison in Yangon under the Counterterrorism Law due to allegations that she funded and helped terrorists.[14] The IDFA Institute called for her release.[15]
Filmography
[edit]| Year | Title | Burmese title | Note(s) | Ref(s). |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | An Untitled Life | Short film Also known as Rahula |
[16][10][17] | |
| 2009 | Brighter Future | |||
| 2010 | Robe | [18] | ||
| 2013 | Take Me Home | |||
| Now I'm 13 | Short film | [19][14] | ||
| 2017 | Yangon, the City Where We Live | Short film | [8] |
Awards
[edit]In December 2024, Shin Daewe was included on the BBC's 100 Women list.[20]
References
[edit]- ^ Han, Thi Ri (30 August 2016). "Nargis documentary spurs new generation of filmmakers". Frontier Myanmar. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
- ^ Vitali, Valentina (15 September 2020). "Contemporary Women Filmmakers in Myanmar: Reflections on a Visit in February 2019". BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies. 11 (1): 78–91. doi:10.1177/0974927620935754. ISSN 0974-9276.
- ^ "Shin Daewe｜The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2018 Mapping the Invisible". The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2018 Mapping the Invisible (in Japanese). Retrieved 2023-03-05.
- ^ Sylla, Fanta; Rogers, Andrew (15 August 2016). "Locarno: Thu Thu Shein Discusses Myanmar's Budding Independent Film Industry, the Value of Collaboration". Variety. Locarno: Variety Media, LLC. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
Shin Daewe is a really strong woman documentary filmmaker. I've been producing her documentary film for NHK TV this year.
- ^ Linn, Hsu Wai (7 April 2016). "လေးစားအားကျဖွယ် ထက်မြက်သော အမျိုးသမီးများ (၇) (Seven Women who are Respectful and Intelligent)". ဧရာဝတီ (in Burmese). Retrieved 6 March 2023.
- ^ a b c Myay, Chan (25 December 2013). "'I've Always Looked for Ways to Expose the Country's Real Situation'". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
- ^ "အမျိုးသမီးသတင်းထောက် တစ်ဦး မျက်မြင်ကြုံတွေ့ခဲ့ရတဲ့ သွေးစွန်းတဲ့ ရွှေဝါရောင်". BBC News မြန်မာ (in Burmese). Retrieved 6 March 2023.
- ^ a b "Yangon, the City Where we Live". Visual Documentary Project. Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
- ^ Mike (19 September 2017). "Remembering Revolution: The Dilemmas of a Journalist". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
- ^ a b "Featured Filmmaker: Ko Thaid Dhi". EngageMedia. 6 September 2016. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
My favorite film would be 'An Untitled Life' by Shin Daewe, for which I was a cinematographer.
- ^ Popular Journal (23 July 2018). "ခေတ်ကိုထင်ဟပ်နေတဲ့ ဇာတ်လမ်းမျိုးတွေကိုရုပ်ရှင်အဖြစ် ရိုက်ကူးချင်သူ ဒါရိုက်တာရှင်ဒေဝီ". Popular. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
- ^ Mike (18 March 2016). "Inspiring Women of Burma". The Irrawaddy. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
- ^ "ALLIANCE FOR WOMEN IN MEDIA FOUNDATION UNVEILS WINNERS OF THE 49TH ANNUAL GRACIE AWARDS". The Gracies. 2024. Retrieved 2024-12-10.
- ^ a b Wei, Brian (10 January 2024). "Myanmar Junta Jails Award-Winning Filmmaker for Life". The Irrawaddy. Irrawaddy Publishing Group. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
- ^ "Over 100 workers from Burma arrested in Malaysia; Martin Smith says scale of crisis is unprecedented". DVB. 26 January 2024.
- ^ "An Untitled Life (2008)". MUBI. MUBI Inc. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
- ^ Thi Ri Han (30 August 2016). "Nargis documentary spurs new generation of filmmakers". Frontier Myanmar. Boomerang Media Pte. Ltd. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
- ^ Vitali, Valentina (June 2020). "Contemporary Women Filmmakers in Myanmar: Reflections on a Visit in February 2019". BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies. 11 (1). University of Westminster: 78–91. doi:10.1177/0974927620935754. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
- ^ "Now I'm 13 (2014)". MUBI. MUBI Inc. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
- ^ "BBC 100 Women 2024: Who is on the list this year?". BBC. 3 December 2024. Retrieved 3 December 2024.