Lengthy earlier than he grew to become an award-winning filmmaker, Lynn Lynn was already a star.
His voice was ubiquitous on the radio, belting out rock songs, and he performed sold-out reveals in stadiums throughout the nation. In all places he went, followers hounded him for selfies and autographs.
However all that fame was confined to Myanmar, a rustic he needed to flee after a February 2021 army coup.
It wasn’t solely his lyrics in regards to the struggling of individuals beneath army rule that had made him a goal of the nation’s generals. He was additionally near the nation’s now-imprisoned civilian chief, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, having as soon as served as her bodyguard.
Now dwelling within the Thai metropolis of Mae Sot, bordering Myanmar, the 39-year-old rocker has taken on a brand new identification: refugee.
Regardless of the drastic modifications in his circumstances, he has not given up on artwork, however he has modified his focus: to movie.
His first brief film, “The Starting,” whose important characters are a fictional group of individuals from Myanmar, focuses on the significance of fine will in constructing a democratic nation. 5 months later, he adopted with “The Manner,” which captures the trauma and despair of a household affected by a nation’s battle; regardless of the darkish themes, the film is a musical — the primary by a director from Myanmar.
Each movies have gained a number of honors at worldwide movie festivals, with “The Manner” additionally incomes a number of accolades for its soundtrack.
“I need to give the message that the army junta can oppress an artist bodily, however the spirit and artwork can’t be oppressed,” Mr. Lynn Lynn mentioned, talking from his spartan music studio, a bed room in a rented home in Mae Sot.
Mr. Lynn Lynn’s life story has been formed by his nation’s convulsive current historical past, shifting from dictatorship to democracy to the present-day resistance.
The youngest of 4 boys, he was born within the metropolis of Mandalay to a railway employee father and a mom who stayed at dwelling.
When he was 5, he noticed shut at hand the brutality of the military whose leaders dominated the nation: troopers pulling passengers from a ship and commanding everybody — no matter age — to kneel. That scene of dominance and humiliation, he says, has stayed with him all through his grownup life.
As a 9-year-old, he taught himself the best way to play guitar. After highschool, he moved to Yangon, the capital on the time, the place he cycled by way of a collection of jobs, together with bus conductor and safety guard, whereas making an attempt to start out a musical profession.
His massive break got here in 2001, after he walked right into a recording studio to drop off his demo tape and was quickly employed to compose songs for a few of Myanmar’s most well-known singers. He established a repute for composing unique songs, a rarity in a rustic the place almost all of the songs have been copied from overseas.
In 2007, he marched every day with the nation’s monks throughout the Saffron Revolution protests. He learn again and again “Freedom From Concern,” a e book of essays by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, on the time the chief of the nation’s opposition, who was beneath home arrest.
He realized the best way to navigate the nation’s censors. Out of each 5 songs submitted, he was instructed to alter the lyrics of three. Generally, he submitted totally different lyrics after which later swapped again within the unique phrases, with out anybody seeming to note.
“He’s a insurgent,” mentioned his spouse, Chit Thu Wai, a widely known actress and singer.
In 2008, Mr. Lynn Lynn launched “Assume,” an album with love songs that he had written initially for different singers. It was an immediate hit and catapulted him to stardom.
In 2011, the army initiated a spread of sweeping political modifications, together with releasing Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who convened a gathering of the nation’s artists at her home.
There, Mr. Lynn Lynn instructed the Nobel Peace Prize winner he can be keen to do something for her. He grew to become considered one of her bodyguards through the 2012 by-election and the 2015 basic election.
After she gained in 2015, changing into the nation’s civilian chief, Mr. Lynn Lynn returned to music. In a position to sing brazenly in regards to the generals, he launched an album known as “The Fourth Revolution.”
Then, in February 2021, two months after Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi gained the 2020 election in a landslide, the army detained her and introduced it had taken energy in a coup.
The junta charged dozens of actors and musicians, together with Mr. Lynn Lynn and his spouse, with “incitement.” After months in hiding, the household determined reluctantly to depart Myanmar.
Mr. Lynn Lynn went first in August 2021, trekking throughout a jungle after which swimming to Mae Sot. Ms. Chit Thu Wai and their twin daughters, now 6, adopted every week later.
Mr. Lynn Lynn had by no means needed to make films in Myanmar. Whereas he dabbled in script writing and supported unbiased filmmakers by way of a manufacturing firm he owned along with his spouse, he thought of a lot of the films made in Myanmar to be too lowbrow to a lot curiosity him.
He says he turned to movie partly to “problem” his inventive friends again dwelling, a lot of whom permit the generals to make use of them for propaganda.
Myanmar’s Directorate of Public Relations and Psychological Warfare has at all times exploited actors and actresses, utilizing them in movies to painting troopers as honorable heroes. In return for staying silent, these celebrities take pleasure in perks, like being paid to attend galas such because the Myanmar Academy Awards.
Mr. Lynn Lynn says he has seen that the timing of those superstar occasions usually coincides with experiences about extra army atrocities. Almost each week brings horrific information: 100 useless in an airstrike. Bombs dropped at an outside live performance. Eleven youngsters killed at a faculty.
Halfway by way of an interview in Mae Sot, Mr. Lynn Lynn lifted up his T-shirt to disclose his again. In neat, cursive script, there have been 700 tattooed names and ages of a few of these killed within the coup’s aftermath.
Aung Myint, 32. Tun Win Han, 25. Khin Myo Chit, 7.
“There are such a lot of extra to return,” Ms. Chit Thu Wai mentioned.
Mr. Lynn Lynn says he appears to be like on the names within the mirror to “compel a way of urgency upon my consciousness.” The Help Affiliation for Political Prisoners, a rights group, mentioned greater than 4,000 folks had been killed in Myanmar because the coup.
Mr. Lynn Lynn knew that taking pictures films in Mae Sot, so near Myanmar, was harmful. Seventeen of 20 forged members of “The Manner” stood accused of “incitement,” and so they feared Myanmar army’s spies have been in every single place, elevating considerations they might be kidnapped or killed.
Within the film, members of the central household sing about their affected by battle and their quest for peace and justice. Myanmar isn’t explicitly talked about as a result of, Mr. Lynn Lynn says, he needs the story to be common.
Two weeks earlier than the shoot, he was nonetheless undecided how he would pull it off with out the subtle gear usually wanted to make a movie. He determined to borrow a good friend’s iPhone 13 Professional to make use of because the digital camera. For the music, he gave himself a crash course in sound mixing.
Mr. Lynn Lynn’s forged members had by no means acted earlier than, however some had backgrounds much like the tales that he needed to depict. His directorial recommendation was to learn the script and “really feel it in your coronary heart,” recalled Aung Lun, one of many actors, who had left his 5-year-old son and spouse behind in Myanmar when he fled in 2021.
Mr. Aung Lun’s character in “The Manner” leaves his child daughter at a faculty as troopers set fireplace to their village. Years later, his character confesses that secret to his household.
Throughout that scene, Mr. Aung Lun cried so onerous the crew needed to pause the shoot for an hour.
As Mr. Lynn Lynn waits to listen to whether or not he and his household could be resettled in the US, he has extra movie initiatives within the works, together with a satire set in Myanmar earlier than the coup.
Wherever he finds himself, he intends to maintain making movies.
“I need to use a language understood by all the universe,” he mentioned. “I need to present that even whereas we’re on the run, our artwork will proceed to reside powerfully.”