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Failure to comply can lead to prison terms of up to five years and fines of 40,000 kyats [US $30].

The restrictions o­nly gave a boost to the illegal copying and sale of foreign-made films.

The black market trade is booming throughout the country, especially in the border regions but also o­n the streets of Rangoon and Mandalay. Traders in the Shan border town of Tachilek sell thousands of pirated CDs and DVDs monthly to foreigners from neighboring Thailand. Big-budget Hollywood films often pop up o­n market stalls before their official release.

The vast majority are copies of foreign productions, posing—according to Information Minister Kyaw Hsan— a “threat to Myanmar [Burma] film and video industries as well as to national culture, nationalism, patriotism and union spirit.” He complained in a speech at Burma’s Motion Picture Academy Awards—the country’s sad version of Hollywood’s Oscar ceremony—that foreign CDs and DVDs were “flooding into Myanmar.”

Kyaw Hsan proposed “five tasks” to put the Burmese film industry o­n its feet, promising state support for the establishment of modern studios, equipped with state-of-the-art editing machines capable of handling stereo sound, and investment in international-standard video cameras. Cinemas should be upgraded and new o­nes of international standard should be built in Rangoon and Mandalay, he said.

A Hollywood-style dream scenario? Those in the industry are skeptical. A source close to the state-sponsored film organization Myanmar Movie Asiayone commented: “Until now all the [government’s] words and promises have just vanished into thin air.”