Our Planting Seeds pick for August is an afternoon event focused on stories from Myanmar.
Feature film A Thousand Fires will be preceded by Please Enjoy Our Tragedies: Art as a Voice for Myanmar’s Forgotten Struggle. In Charlie Scrimgeour's short documentary for Al Jazeera, an artist flees Myanmar following the 2021 coup and uses art to keep the world engaged in the plight of his nation.
Saeed Taji Farouky's critical hit A Thousand Fires, is a mesmerising and beautifully shot account of parents working hard in the hand-drilled oil fields of central Myanmar to give their son a better future. But when he quits school to follow his dream of becoming a football player, the family worries that he's throwing his life away. Part poetic meditation, part realistic ethnographic study, the film manages to both explore the specificities of Myanmar's recent history and exploitation of its "black gold" and the wider philosophical, religious, and cultural ramifications of one family's choices and plight.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.
Charlie Scrimgeour is an award-winning documentary director and cinematographer based in London and specialised in environmental issues.
Saeed Taji Farouky is a Palestinian-British award-winning documentary filmmaker and artist specialising in long-term human rights projects.
