Kayan Beauties (Kayan Ahla) by director Aung Ko Latt
“KAYAN Beauties” will soon be coming to a movie screen near you, and then to screens across the world, courtesy of veteran movie director Aung Ko Latt. For him, completing this film will mean a 20-year-old dream has come true.
His feature film Kayan Ahla (Kayan Beauties) features the Kayan people of Kayah State. This national race is also called “Padaung”, whose women wear ornamental neck rings of brass. This has the effect of stretching the neck, a rare and strange expression of feminine beauty.
Three Kayan women decide to travel from their remote village in the Kayah State of Myanmar to sell handicrafts in the distant city of Taunggyi, in the Shan State. They are accompanied by a Kayan girl, who has just had the tribe’s decorative, brass rings placed around her neck. In Taunggyi, the girl is kidnapped by human traffickers. Far from home and out of their element, the Kayan women desperately search for the girl.
Directed by Aung Ko Latt
Produced by Aung Ko Latt and Hector Carosso
Cinematography by Aung Ko Latt
Edited by Aung Ko Latt
Screen written by Hector Carosso
Music by Nay Thit Moe and Thaw Dar Aung
Website: www.kayanbeauties.com
Kayan:
Around 30,000 Kayan (known in Burmese as Paduang) live in an area northwest of Loikaw, the state capital. A few hundred are living in villages’ camps across the border in Thailand, where they are popular tourist attractions because of their women’s distinctive dress and the brass rings they wear around their necks. A larger population of Kayan live in adjoining districts of the Shan State.
Photo credit: Mya Win
