21 July

A meeting on development of cinemas and upgrading cinematic system was held at the Information and Public Relations Department (IPRD) in Kokkine Avenue, Bahan Township, Yangon. The meeting was held separately with cinema owners and film producers.

Present at the meeting were Union Minister of Information Dr Pe Myint, Deputy Minister U Aung Hla Tun and officials, President of Myanmar Motion Picture Asiayone U Zin Wine and officials, cinema owners and films Producers.

At the event, Union Minister urged the attendees to discuss difficulties, ideas and practicalities. He said that that the meeting was held to coordinate the growth of Myanmar films and to upgrade cinematic system.

It is important for the people in the film industry to be fair and equitable in every sector. Disagreements on discussions were seen at the meeting. As was said before, the aim of the meeting was to discuss development of cinemas and improving the screening system of Myanmar movies. It is important that the artists, producers and business persons in the motion picture industry get along and are united. If all sectors are bad except one, it wouldn’t be sustainable. All need to be fair.

In selecting the problems raised in the meeting, there were some disparities. It is important for the producers to screen movies that were in the screening waiting list for a long time and it will have an impact on the actors so Myanmar Motion Picture Asiayone ought to consider and think from the angle of benefitting the people in the movie industry and permit earliest screening.

He urged the producers to make quality movies and the cinema owners also wanting to screen quality movies to the audience. It was necessary to cooperate and resolve the current problem in accordance with the rules and regulations so that it was acceptable to all and were in line with the time and era.

The Union Minister has called for taking rational approach to the current issue, expressing thanks for obtaining good results from the day’s meetings. Providing effective suggestions will be good and beneficial to all, said the Union Minister.

Afterwards, IPRD Director General U Ye Naing explained about status of work conducted for development of Myanmar film Industry, changes in screening system of movies and building cinemas and findings on movie production and screening system of movies.

U Zin Wine then discussed and explained about development of cinemas and improving the screening system of Myanmar movies.

This was followed by cinema owners and producers making suggestions on works done toward improving the screening system, discussed and suggested on conditions encountered.

It was learnt that discussions made during the day’s meeting will be compiled and more meetings will be conducted to establish a better system.

At the moment there were 144 cinemas with 165 screens in Myanmar and plans were being made to open more. In 2018, 83 movies where shown and in 2019 up to 20th July a total of 53 movies were being shown. According to the screening schedule the total number of movies shown this year will break the record of 95 movies shown in 1962. But from 2016 to date, 239 movies remain to be screened. Movies screened includes good quality one as well as one with not much time gap between completion of shooting the movie and screening it.

There had been competitions toward making good and high quality movies. Film system was changed to digital system and more movies were shown simultaneously in cinemas all over the country. From the day’s meeting it was learnt that the audio/video system and services had become better.

Furthermore Film Development Center (FDC) was opened by Ministry of Information on 21 July 2018 for the development of film industry and analyses on films were conducted there. All three film studios were renovated and were being rented at reasonable prices.

Shooting location fees for foreign movies were designated as ordinary and commercial with fees ranging from K 500,000 to K 2 million were reduced to K 100,000 starting from 1 April. Daily rate for shooting a movie was set at K 100,000 but it was no longer collected starting from 1 April 2019. Because of that, there has been an increase in shooting of foreign movies. Coordination was made toward making available shooting locations in Nay Pyi Taw as well as shooting locations related to departments. ((Translated by Alphonsus)