Nargis - When Time Stopped Breathing

Pitch

In May 2008, a cyclone named Nargis devastated the Ayeyarwaddy Delta in Myanmar for hours, claiming 140,000 lives. In Western media reports, much of the focus was on the military regime's refusal to accept international aid. Seven days after the storm, several young Burmese filmmakers cautiously traveled—since filming was prohibited by the government—to villages that had been completely destroyed and met people who had lost everything to the cyclone.
They captured scenes that deeply affected them, navigating a world that seemed more surreal than real, where life and death appeared to coexist. Their footage reflects not only their own emotions but also those of the people they encountered; these feelings were woven into a film that conveys what a natural disaster like Nargis means when it forever alters the lives of so many.
After two years of imprisonment, Pe Maung Same, a co-director of the film, died in August 2024, tortured by the junta.