A YOUNG Myanmar filmmaker has beaten the world in an international competition held in the United States. Impressed judges awarded the 2008 Best Short Award to director Kyi Phyu Shin for her documentary A Sketch of Wathone at the All Roads Film Festival organised by the National Geographic Society.

The 5th annual festival was held from September 25 to 28 in Los Angeles and also October 2 to 5 in Washington, DC. About 25 selected films and documentaries were screened, and three received awards.

The 32-year-old director said she was “lost in a daydream” when she heard the announcement that she was one of the winners.

“When they announced my name, I couldn’t believe my ears. I asked myself ‘did they announce wrongly or did they single me out for special thanks?’ I didn’t dare believe it,” Kyi Phyu Shin told The Myanmar Times after she came back from Washington on October 14.

Aware of the strength of her competitors, the director said she went to America only to applaud the winners, not because she had high hopes for herself.

“As I couldn’t use the most advanced cameras and large crews like other directors, I didn’t dare to expect too much. And all of them are good directors. I filmed this documentary with a video camera and the help of two friends, a cameraman and a sound engineer. So I didn’t think I had much of a chance,” she said.

“There was also another documentary titled On the Ice. It was the most popular and was supposed to win because it already won a prize at another festival. But my film won against it.”

Almost every work in competition featured scenes Director
from remote areas, wars, hardship and poverty. Kyi Phyu Shin thought her work, which records the simple lifestyle of the famous artist Wathone, was quite different from the others. The judges and audiences took notice.

In her 14-minute film, the director filmed the artist sharing his thoughts on life, art and family, from the seclusion of his charmingly idiosyncratic home. It reflects the importance of spiritual serenity over the pursuit of wealth.

“After watching, the audiences said they felt peaceful. This is the message I want to give through my documentary. All I want to show is peacefulness and reality. So I didn’t use any camera tricks and my shots were always still throughout the whole process. It was because I want to simply express the reality with simple camera angles,” said Kyi Phyu Shin.

Kyi Phyu Shin said winning the award also changed her misconceptions about the potential for filming in Myanmar.

“Documentary making in Myanmar is still in the early stages. People think that our work is poor quality and we can’t break into the international film world. I used to think so too,” she said.

“But my winning proves that our artistic temperament and talent can compete with the others even if we can’t use updated technology yet. So it’s not just a success for me, but for all Myanmar documentary makers. And I see a brighter future for our film industry.” She said she would keep making documentaries celebrating the culture of Myanmar and its many points of interest.

Kyi Phyu Shin has made seven films and 15 videos in the past decade.