To Be a Marma

Directed by Edward Owles

The Marma are a minority indigenous people living in the Hill Tracts of the Bangladesh/Myanmar border. Ruled over by an increasingly symbolic monarchy, as well as the Bangladeshi state, they are battling to protect their identity, culture and territory in the face of mass climate migration onto their ancestral lands. To Be a Marma portrays how different figures try to do this through religion, music and land ownership. It was made as part of producer/academic Farhana Hoque's long term collaboration with the community.