Our coordinator, Robert Witlox, visited the festival in November 2014. It was a great event: an interesting programme with contributions from the region, a high turnout, a positive atmosphere and quite some attention from the press. Congratulations to the brilliant organisers of this new event in Myanmar! The programme included two documentaries that we sponsored: Red over the Rainbow and A Butterfly Taboo. Both films received a warm welcome.
We also sponsored the ‘Rainbow Reels Workshops’. Nine young LGBT people followed a ten-day workshop on documentary making, and the documentaries that they worked on during that workshop – three shorts – formed the opening films of the ‘&PROUD’ festival. Considering their limited experience and the limited amount of time these young filmmakers had, they came up with three little gems. The presentation was also a coming-out for them: the filmmakers as well as the three protagonists of their respective films, stood open ‘&PROUD’ on a podium for the first time. And we will proudly upload these three shorts on our website soon and will inform you of when they can be viewed.
We want to thank our sponsors for enabling us to finance the ‘Rainbow Reels Workshops’. We intend to sponsor the ‘Rainbow Reels Workshops’ next year, too. We find it of great value to be involved in this project, which is a breeding ground for new LGBT filmmaking talent in Myanmar. The ‘&PROUD’ film festival will develop into an inspiring new pink dot on the map of Southeast Asia.
