A litmus test for the new Burma
As a comedian, poet, film-maker and loudmouth, I often fell foul of the censors in Burma, where I was a political prisoner four times. Sometimes it was through deliberate provocation, such as my insistence on trying to include kidnap scenes in all of my films, where at some point the good guys would exclaim "we must free that lady!", a thinly veiled act of resistance which caught on in the industry and became obligatory for many film-makers during Aung San Suu Kyi's imprisonment.
My most recent sentence was for 35 years, imposed for criticism of the Burmese government's woeful response to Cyclone Nargis in 2008, and from which I was released last autumn as part of a mass amnesty.… Seguir leyendo »