European film festival goes in Burma

Burma's commercial capital Rangoon will host a European film festival in October as the country slowly emerges from decades of political and cultural isolation.

The festival, organised by the British Embassy, will feature films from Britain, Italy, France and Germany, according to the Sunday Myanma Ahlin newspaper.

The eightday film festival is to be held at the Rangoon's Naypyitaw Cinema from October 2229.

Western nations have maintained economic sanctions against Burma since 1988, when an army crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators left an estimated 3,000 people dead.

But recent political developments, including national elections last year and a meeting last weekend between opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's President Thein Sein in the capital Naypyitaw, have pointed to a possible break in the country's isolation.

Last year, a similar European film festival was launched by the Italian embassy in Rangoon.

In 2009, French embassy organised the European film festival. A number of famous films from the European countries with English subtitles were screened including "One Day in Europe", "Emma's Bliss", "Zo Zo", and "One Hundred", from Germany, "Jean de la Fontaine" and "Love is in the air" from France, "The Early Bird Catches The Worm", from Italy and "Becoming Jane" from Britain.

The local cinema industry has been in the doldrums recently with several theatres closing down due to government censorship, stiff competition from pirated DVDs and widely popular Bollywood films.