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Naypyidaw Unrolls the Red Carpet for Burma’s  ‘Oscar’ Night

Burma’s new administrative capital Naypyidaw hosted this year’s Burmese version of the US Academy Awards for the first time. Since 1952, the event has been held in Rangoon, usually during the last week of December.

This year’s event was postponed first until January 6 and then rescheduled for March 5, reportedly due to construction delays in the new capital.

During a speech o­n ‘Oscar’ night, Information Minister Brig-Gen Kyaw Hsan said that foreign movies, VCDs and CDs pose a threat to the local film industry as well as to national culture. “Only when that threat is removed would there be improvement in the Myanmar film and video industries, and national culture, nationalistic spirit, patriotic spirit and union spirit would flourish and could be preserved,” Kyaw Hsan warned.

Awards were given to 11 of the 16 films produced in Burma during 2005. Unsurprisingly, Kyansittmin, a film about the life of the ancient Bagan-era monarch who reigned from 1084 to 1113, won the award for best picture. Its star, Lu Min, took home the prize for best actor.

In the best actress category, the ever popular Htun Eindra Bo won for her role in Beyond Horizon. Best director and best scriptwriter awards both went to well-known filmmaker Kyi Soe Tun for his film Hexagon.

The night was not without surprises or controversy. Richard Ye Win was awarded the prize for best audio engineering for the film Kyansittmin, despite the fact that he served merely as a broker with a Malaysian audio company. “He has no experience at all in audio engineering,” a film director told The Irrawaddy. Observers in Burma have often speculated that corruption among nominees and government authorities was a major factor in deciding the winners in the annual event.

Exhibition in US Capital Shows Chin Identity Through Textiles

Textiles from Burma’s ethnic Chin minority were o­n display for the first time in Washington, DC. Nearly 80 pieces, comprising ceremonial mantles, tunics, loincloths, skirts and other garments—including jewelry and accessories—were featured in the exhibition “Mantles of Merit: Chin Textiles from Mandalay to Chittagong.” The event was hosted by Washington’s Textile Museum.

The museum said the exhibition aimed to highlight the sophisticated textiles of the Chin, who live in the hills of western Burma, northeastern India and eastern Bangladesh. Chin textiles are traditionally made from homegrown cotton, flax or hemp, often dyed with indigo or other locally produced natural dyes.

The Chin mark achievements in their lives through various types of clothing. The role that textiles play in Chin society was a major theme of the exhibition, which finished in late February after more than four months o­n display.

“Chin peoples have traditionally strived to distinguish themselves from their peers through accomplishments in hunting, war, wealth accumulation and feast-giving,” a museum statement said. “The textiles made and worn by the Chin announce those accomplishments through specific patterns reserved for the meritorious.”

The Red Dragon Rises

Two German universities in Passau and Hamburg have returned to the spotlight an old

and influential Burmese book club, called Nagani, or “Red Dragon.” Led by Dr Hans-Bernd Zöllner, the Nagani Project aims to study certain aspects of the history of the book club, particularly its role in the country’s fight for independence from the British and to encourage joint research by scholars living inside and outside Burma.

Taking well-known British publisher Victor Gollancz’s Left Book Club as its model, the Nagani Book Club was founded in 1937 in Rangoon by Burmese nationalists, including Burma’s late Prime Minister U Nu. The aim of the club was to print, at low cost, a series of books in the Burmese language that contained the heart of contemporary international thought in the fields of literature, history, economics, politics and science.