For young women, life in contemporary Myanmar can feel quite oppressive. Especially if they work at a textile factory in the industrial Yangon, the country’s largest city. Just like San Kyi and Theint Theint Oo do. They are the protagonists of Fruit Gathering (Thit-thee Khu), Aung Phyoe’s much-anticipated feature directorial debut, which world premieres in the Crystal Globe main competition program of the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) on Thursday.
It marks the first time that the fest in the Czech spa town has programmed a movie from Myanmar.
The two young women at the center of the chamber piece that is Fruit Gathering face more challenges than hard work in a monotonous environment, including exhausting work, economic uncertainty and social repression. After all, there are also private lives, needs and desires that don’t get enough time and attention.
“Although the grueling pace of everyday life stifles opportunities for human connection, both women continue to dream of intimacy and escape,” the press notes highlight. “When they grow closer, they set in motion the previously silenced fibers of their own emotions.”
The film weaves tenderness, harshness, silence, and unspoken hopes into a cinematic tapestry that “explores how women’s desires survive in a country where intimacy and love between women remain socially unacceptable,” the KVIFF website notes.
