re:assemblage collective

RETURN TO BURMA / GUI LAI DE REN

Directed by Midi Z
Taiwan, Myanmar · 2011 · 84'00

After decades, Burma holds its first presidential election. Many Burmese living in foreign lands believe that changes will happen soon and it will move towards prosperity. So Xing-hong and Rong decide to return home. However, just a few days before departure during an overtime shift, Rong has an accident. With Rong's ashes, Xing-hong returns home alone. When he arrives in Burma, Xing-hong finds out that his brother De is about to go to Malaysia to work. Many young people want to leave, but he has always wanted to stay in his hometown to do business. He begins asking around for possible business opportunities, but yet cannot decide which business to engage. To Xing-hong, Burma seems unfamiliar and distant, because he has left Burma for too long. Consequently, at his own hometown or on a foreign soil, he always feels estranged as if abandoned by time and space. On a blackout night, the smuggling bazaar by the border between Burma and China, the motorcycles roaring into the faint daylight! Through the protagonist Xing-hong, we witness the changes Burma is going through and the true state of existence of its people. (Midi Z)

Midi Z was born in Myanmar, Midi Z went to study in Taiwan at the age of sixteen and obtained a BA and an MFA in Design. Currently, he makes films in Taiwan, Myanmar and China. Since 2011 Midi has made three feature films, each with a budget smaller than ten thousand US dollars. They include Return to Burma, which received the Hubert Bals Fund, The Poor Folk, which was in competition at the Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes and Ice Poison, which won Best International Feature at the Edinburgh Film Festival and represented Taiwan at the Foreign Language Oscars in 2014. In 2016, Midiâ€™s latest feature, The Road to Mandalay, won Best Feature Film FEDEORA Award in the Venice Days section of the Venice Film Festival and the Grand Prix at the Amien Film Festival. In addition to the features, Midi has made three documentaries to date. In 2016, his second documentary, City of Jade, which premiered at the Berlinale, was nominated for Best Documentary at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and won the Special Mention award at the 2017 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. In 2018, Midi's third documentary, 14 Apples, premiered at the Berlinale.