_{Letter to San Zaw Htway by Petr Lom}

San Zaw Htway, the subject of Petr Lom’s new documentary (premiering in IDFA’s Frontlight section) died in 2017. It is easy, though, to understand why so many in Myanmar today are looking to him to bolster their own courage. The country underwent a brutal military coup earlier this year. The artist and former student activist San Zaw Htway, had seen it coming. In 1999, he had been sentenced to prison by the military regime. He spent a dozen years incarnated. That gave him an insight in how brutal the military remained even when it was paying lip service to democracy.

What makes him such an inspirational figure was not just his clear-eyed view of the dictators, but his lack of rancour. He had been tortured and traumatised (“he took the full brunt of this brutal, horrific, sadistic regime” as Lom puts it) and yet, when he was finally released, he refused to be eaten up by hatred or bitterness.

As the situation worsened in Myanmar this year, a former political prisoner sent Lom a note saying he wondered what San Zaw Htway would be doing now if he was still alive. This was the lightbulb moment for the filmmaker. Lom and his producer partner Corinne van Egeraat had the idea of getting everyone who cared about San Zaw Htway to write him a letter.

“He was a dear friend of ours and we filmed so much with him but we never used the material,” Lom says. “We checked with some of our friends if that was culturally appropriate and if they would like that. Especially some of his family and his close friends really, really like the idea. That is how it started.”

This is the second Myanmar project that Lom and Van Egeraat have completed this year. They produced the short, Sad Film, made anonymously by a protester against the coup. This premiered in Venice in September. They are also working on an anthology film, Myanmar Diaries*, which they are producing for an anonymous collective of young filmmakers.

“It started after the coup: we were thinking what we could do as filmmakers to give attention to the situation there [in Myanmar]. We feel we should do just as much as we can because the situation is so horrible there and there is so little international attention to it,” Lom says of their spate of Myanmar projects. These follow on from their award-winning 2017 documentary Burma Storybook**, made when the country seemed to be emerging from dictatorship.

The new film combines footage of San Zaw Htway with voice-overs from the friends reading their letters to him. In this footage, San is shown as a playful, philosophical and kindly figure who takes an obvious joy in life. “You know, when you meet these people you just want to be around and you do not know why. It is not a charisma. It is just a positive, extraordinary energy and peace around them,” Lom tries to sum up what drew him and so many others to San. “We loved him so much because of that.”

“Did he change in prison? I think he got to know himself so much better there,” Van Egeraat suggests. She also believed that he, like many others, was helped by his Buddhism.

Lom has footage of San Zaw Htway playing around with water, hosing his friends and being hosed in return. “What you are watching is the water festival. It is at the beginning of the celebration of New Year… people throw water at each other. It is the idea of being cleansed and renewed.”

Such footage plays in a stark counterpoint to scenes of the military using water cannons to subdue and control protesters. “It is this horrible contrast. It is supposed to be something to celebrate life and you use it for death.”

Lom and Van Egeraat are already close to completing the anthology film, which is likely to surface at a festival early next year. “It is about 80 minutes long. There are about 10 different directors involved. It goes from fiction to documentary. Part of the reason it is fiction is that it is so unsafe to do things on the street.”

“This is a different bunch of people. They are more militant,” Lom draws a contrast with the director behind Sad Film. “They are very outspoken, extremely critical.”

In order to protect the participants, the film will have no credits at all. However, at IDFA this week, the filmmakers will be joined by Bo Thet Htun, the cinematographer on Letter to San Zaw Htway. “He has fled the country and he is in Thailand now. He has been invited to attend IDFA,” Lom says of his collaborator whowill join him and Van Egeraat on a panel during the festival. 

Letter to San Zaw Htway is produced by ZIN Doc.
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*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund
**Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund and Production Incentive