Burmese Dreaming Synopsis

www.burmesedreaming.org
 
A young Karen woman has a nightmare about the killing of her father by soldiers in a mountain village in Southern Burma. She wakes up. She is in a refugee camp on the Thailand-Burma border. She has been here for six years but still this is not where her mind lives. Instead, it drifts between the realities of refugee life and dreams, day-dreams, and nightmares about Burma and a life she used to live. She remembers being taken from her family to be imprisoned by the Burmese military at the age of 5, she day-dreams about her buffalo friend, Zu Zu Ma, she the childhood games that she used to play with her brothers, and she has imaginary conversations with people she used to know. And then her mind returns to the realities of her life in the refugee camp. And through these reflections the girl’s story – and a story of life in Burma – unfolds.

The narrative for Burmese Dreaming is a creative non-fiction, primarily based upon the life of one refugee girl, Say Say La. After her imprisonment, she spent much of her childhood living in the jungle and moving between family members before returning to live with her parents. Then, at the age of 16, when the military were once again looking for her family, the family home was burnt down. “If my mother was there,” says Say Say Lah, “the soldiers would have killed or maybe raped her.” It was after this that her mother sent Say Say La and her younger sister to walk for a week through the jungle until they reached Umphiem Mai Refugee Camp on the Thailand-Burma border.

While the reflections of Say Say Lah form the primary narrative of Burmese Dreaming, the narrative has been supplemented by a number of other stories contributed by students of the English Immersion Program (EIP), an advanced English teaching school based in Umphiem Mai and a program in which Say Say Lah herself was a student. Written specifically for Burmese Dreaming through a series of workshops conducted by director Timothy Syrota, the stories are sometimes sad, sometimes quite beautiful, but always simple and innately ‘human’ in their content.

Narrating these stories are Naw Bathsheba, another student from EIP, and Saw Teh Teh, a senior member of the Karen Refugee Committee. Punctuating this narrative are exerts from an interview with former Australian Ambassador to Burma, Mr Garry Woodard.

The footage for Burmese Dreaming has been shot in a number of often restricted locations including footage shot in Central Burma (Rangoon, Mandalay, and Pyay), on the western coast of Burma, in Shan State, and in Karen State. Footage also comes from inside the refugee camps on the Thailand-Burma border as well as from Burmese pro-democracy demonstrations.

With regard to footage from inside Karen State, the director worked closely with the grass roots media organization, Burma Issues www.burmaissues.org, and by so doing was able to gain access to otherwise difficult to obtain footage. Similarly, photography was contributed by the Karen Human Rights Group www.khrg.org.

Burmese Dreaming also has a fully composed original musical score. This combines traditional and contemporary music, sound design and wild sound arrangement. The score has recurring musical phrases and themes and is an essential creative element in creating the ‘dreamlike’ nature of the documentary.

This musical score was composed by English musicians David Lazaro and Graham Pointer. David is the son of a former Burmese concert pianist and both he and Graham have worked together as musicians for more than a decade. They also combine to form the post-production sound company ‘Don’t Panic’. The sound was mixed and mastered at DGP audio, London (the same studio that worked on Lord of the Rings) on a pro bono basis.

Filming of Burmese Dreaming formally began in 2001, although footage was being shot as early as 1998, and the production was officially mastered and completed in June 2010. Burmese Dreaming has been privately funded and is soon to be publicly released.