Private Project

Evening Clouds

San Kyi’s grandmother, whom the girl has to take care of while her mother tries to provide for the family, has to go to the hospital for good. A new stage in San Kyi’s life opens up, the beginning of which the family sees in her marriage to a wealthier friend of her mother’s who has been helping them for a long time and who likes San Kyi. Her desire, however, goes elsewhere, but to fulfil it she must stand on her own two feet while trusting her closest friend.

  • Aung Phoye
    Director
    Cobalt Blue (MM, 2019)
  • Aung Phyoe
    Writer
    Cobalt Blue (MM, 2019)
  • Thu Thu Shein
    Producer
    Asian Three-Fold Mirror, 2018
  • Thaiddhi
    Producer
    Asian Three-Fold Mirror, 2018
  • Nandar Myat Aung
    Key Cast
    "San Kyi"
  • Thiri May Thu
    Key Cast
    "Theint Theint Oo"
  • May Paing Soe
    Key Cast
    "mother"
  • Mg Bhone
    Key Cast
    "Phone Shwe"
  • Claire Marquet
    Co-producers
  • Vít Janeček
    Co-producers
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    drama, authorial
  • Runtime:
    18 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    September 15, 2022
  • Country of Origin:
    Myanmar
  • Country of Filming:
    Myanmar
  • Shooting Format:
    4K
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Singapore International Film Festival
    Singapore
    Singapore
    December 1, 2022
    World Premiere
    Official selection: Short Films Competition
  • Bangkok ASEAN Film Festival
    Bangkok
    Thailand
    January 23, 2023
    Thai Premiere
    Official selection: Short films competition
Director Biography - Aung Phoye

Aung Phyoe is a writer, director, and film editor. He was born in Pakokku, Upper Myanmar. He is a B.Eng graduate from Nanyang Technological University Singapore, where he developed a strong interest in cinema by entering the cinema club at the university. He also began to take film classes and attend screenings at the Film Society in Singapore, which reinforced his passion for cinema.
Later, he earned a Diploma in Editing from a Mumbai-based film school, Whistling Woods International. His first short film “Seasonal Rain” was screened for Open Doors Screening at 71st Locarno Film Festival and he edited a feature film “Murder on the Road to Kathmandu” (2018). In 2018, he participated in the Autumn Meeting’s Director Workshop mentored by Tran Anh Hung. His second short film “Cobalt Blue” was selected to Pardi di domani - International Competition at 72nd Locarno Film Festival, which became the first Myanmar short film to be selected for competition.

His feature film project "Fruit Gathering” won the Main Jury Prize at Myanmar Script Fund (2017), the Autumn Meeting’s Grand Prix in Vietnam (2018) and CNC Development Prize at Locarno’s Open Doors Hub (2020).

In 2018, he co-founded “3-ACT Cinema Magazine”, which promotes film education and national cinematic heritage and is actively involved in the Myanmar Independent film scene.

FILMOGRAPHY
1. “Cobalt Blue” (Pyar Pyar Nyo Yaung Maing Ta-lei-lei)
Myanmar | 2019 | Color | 27' | o.v. Burmese

Synopsis: Yangon, 1998. A boy and his mother are waiting for the return of his father, a civil servant, to move out to another town in Upper Burma. On the last evening, the boy tries to understand the
complexities of relationships.

2. “Seasonal Rain” (Yar-thi Moe)
Myanmar | 2016 | Color | 30' | o.v. Burmese

Synopsis: Aye Aye, a young urban woman, has to come to terms with her sexual awakening against the background of repressive parents and a conservative society. Seasonal Rain is based on a short story by Burmese poet and novelist Kyi Aye.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I was born as an only son. It was a lonely childhood where I was never close to my father. I was brought up by my mother and grandmother. At 15, I left my family when I went abroad to study. During my late teens and early twenties, I experienced a certain kind of special feeling towards the kindness of certain friends. I would like to explore the process of getting attached to an individual, getting obsessed with other individuals’ affection in a selfish manner, and the affair of realization of oneself.

With this personal intention, I would like to explore the feeling of being in love through the perspective of an insecure person, where trust and mistrust interplay in a brutal and self-destructive way. Loneliness, uncertainty, desire, resentment, and revenge are the emotions embedded in the story to bring out the hopeful feeling at the end and the dramatic experience of being in love.

With this short film, I need to identify my visual style and the working style with my actors, since the film needs a certain style of acting, which is a big challenge for non-actors. They need to go through difficult emotions such as intimacy, anger, humiliation, confrontation, etc. While maintaining the main theme of the feature project, this short film explores a day in the characters' lives. It reflects the difficult living conditions of contemporary life in Myanmar after the coup, where an individual's life and future are at risk all the time. The plot shows glimpses of a society that lacks trust, created by years of divide-and-conquer tactics, where the relationship is reduced to basic primary needs-for monetary or opportunity exchange, and self-gain.

The cinematography consists of handheld shots, which reflect the urgency and uncertainty of the situation the characters are going through. The visual treatment is mostly simple and concrete, with the detailed mise-en-scène established for the authenticity of the character's world (working class in Yangon, Myanmar). The deeply layered ambient sound and diegetic sound are used to reconstruct the physical (COVID time and after the coup) and emotional atmospheres of the characters.