Burma Storybook
Poetry is immensely popular in Burma/Myanmar, a country emerging from years of dictatorship and isolation. In the past, poetry was a way to endure and resist tyranny. Today, there are more online poets than bloggers. The stories and poems in Burma Storybook circle around Maung Aung Pwint, the country’s most famous dissident poet alive today, as he waits for his long-lost son to return home from exile. His family symbolizes resistance and grace, an answer to the poet’s question: “how can our hearts possibly be healed?”
Directors
Corinne van Egeraat
Corinne van Egeraat is a Dutch independent filmmaker and creative producer with a background in theatre. She specializes in projects around creative freedom of expression. In 2011-2012 she produced the Self-Portrait Video Project, a year-long workshop on autobiographical storytelling with young Egyptian artists, which culminated in the collaborative feature documentary ANA ANA (“I am me” in Arabic). The film was nominated for best film at IDFA 2014 and released in the cinemas across the Netherlands. Corinne is currently producing Framing the Transition, a human rights photography essay project with twelve young Burmese photographers.
Petr Lom
Petr Lom was born in Prague in 1968, grew up in Canada, and is now based in The Netherlands with his Dutch wife Corinne van Egeraat. He received his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard and was Associate Professor at George Soros’ Central European University in human rights and philosophy. In 2003, he became an independent documentary director and producer specializing in human rights film. His award-winning films have been broadcast in over thirty countries and screened at more than two hundred and fifty film festivals around the world including Sundance and the Berlinale.