Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing
Proudly from the land of temples and tea leaves, Myanmar.
Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing has worked as a freelance filmmaker in Myanmar since 2006, acting as director, producer, editor, and sound recordist after attending film schools in both Myanmar and Germany. Her documentary short Burmese Butterfly played festivals in more than 20 countries, including Sheffield Film Fest , and her experimental film, PERIOD@PERIOD won for Best Short at the Wathann Film Festival. Midwives is her feature documentary debut. The film had its world premiere in January 2022 at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in the US where it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Excellence in Vérité Filmmaking.Additional awards including the Asian Competition Grand Prix and the Next Award at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in South Korea, the Vaclav Havel Award at the One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague and the Jury Award for the Best Documentary at the Indie Meme Film Festival in Austin, US as well as screening at 40-plus festivals around the world including at Hot Docs Toronto, CPH:DOX Copenhagen, San Francisco, Sydney, Sheffield and in the ‘Best of the Fests’ at IDFA, Amsterdam.MIDWIVES film has been released in Germany and the UK and sold to 16 countries. It was nominated for the German Documentary Film Award and the Independent Spirit Award in the USA in 2023.
For seven years I worked at the Yangon Film School in Myanmar, mentoring the students while assisting as director and editor for their filmmaking projects. Some of these films and documentaries have played an important role in our countries current political change, while we found ourselves in a remarkable democratic transition.