KYOTO INTERNATIONAL FILM AND ART FESTIVAL 2022

Strike with the Beat bears witness to cold blooded killings in the wake of the coup d’état by the Burmese military when they seized power. This documentary provides a bare account of how civil society rose to protest and focuses on one group called "Drum Revolution" who unified and came out against the military Junta. It provides a critical on the ground overview of the turmoil that struck Yangon and the whole country in early March, 2021.

Life for women and girls is far from safe in parts of conflict affected Kayah State, in the Eastern part of Myanmar. In this absorbing short documentary, first-time director Khin San Win explores both her own trauma and that of another woman from her village in a bid to break the silence that shrouds violence against women in Myanmar.

The news of the call for submissions to the VDP came in August, when one of the filmmakers was commemorating her father’s death anniversary and
her cousin’s birthday. This became the reason for her to invite the other filmmaker to use their shared language (cinema) and contemplate on themes, in the context of the Covid-induced lockdown. This documentary contemplates the meaning of life and death blending personal, intimate stories and provides a reflection of contemporary life, family relations, and networks in contemporary Vietnam.

Madame Lien is the head of the third generation of her family to take over a shipyard where traditional wooden boats are built. Existing along the banks of the Mekong River for almost a century, it has witnessed many drastic times of change. Today, sustainable development has become a goal along the river, yet parallel to this, as cities modernize, traditional values are gradually disappearing. This documentary focuses on Madame Lien and her efforts to keep the shipyard afloat. It dwells upon how it gives her life meaning as she remembers how she fought to preserve it in the past. This documentary poignantly presents a person with compassion toward her workers, her relationship with them, and how they have trusted and followed her their whole lives.

The Twilight Years (Meniti Senja) is a documentary that reflects on the breakdown of traditional family values in modern Malaysian society that are marginalizing the elderly. Age will eventually catch up with everyone and by 2030, Malaysia’s over 65 population is set to increase to 15%. Are we witnessing our own fates in a not-too-distant future? This work sensitively explores the alarming rise of the elderly being left to fend for themselves in aged care centers removed from the comfort of homes they knew and children they raised. It recounts the stories of people who were once mothers, fathers, grandparents - now slowly aging amidst strangers within the walls of a care home in Puchong and shares their heart-breaking stories of abuse, exploitation, and abandonment.