“Security Considerations on this Film Were Everywhere, All the Time”: Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing on Her Sundance-Debuting doc Midwives

With grace and humility, Midwives, the feature debut of Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing, puts a nuanced human face on a complicated conflict long flattened by the Western press. Back in 2012 the director returned to her birthplace in Rakhine State, an area of Myanmar now infamous for the ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya population, yet also a place where Buddhists and Muslims lived in harmony at the time Snow was growing up. There she met two equally complicated women: Hla, a Buddhist midwife and the hardened business-minded owner of a medical clinic, and her young apprentice Nyo Nyo, a dreamy strong-willed Muslim who also works as a translator for the Rohingya women that Hla likewise serves (often at risk to the controversial clinic itself). What Snow uncovered was a tale of clashing ambitions, tough love tinged with casual racism, and the highs and lows of motherhood, all set against the backdrop of societal expectations, competing armed forces, and ultimately a military coup. Just prior to the film’s January 24th world premiere in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at this year’s online Sundance, Filmmaker reached out to the director to learn all about her 6-year-long project, including how in the world she avoided arrest while shooting in an authoritarian-controlled police state. Midwives was just picked up by POV out of Sundance.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.