Set within a modest clinic in the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, run by the married couple San San Oo and Aung Min – both doctors and artists –The Clinic (2023) opens with close observation of the space’s daily operations. Patients arrive at the crowded waiting room seeking relief from insomnia, auditory hallucinations, alcoholism and other conditions.

Ever dynamic, Midi Z’s camera then shifts to follow the husband Aung Min, a filmmaker, who is making a film exploring the lives of the Rohingya community in Myanmar. By documenting the process of filmmaking itself, Midi Z creates a nested structure in which the roles of patient, physician, and filmmaker are intertwined and personal ambitions, political realities, art and mental health coalesce in this delicate reflexive portrait.

Through these layers, the effects of living under chronic instability begin to emerge within the clinic. Decades of civil war, political violence and ethnic conflict in Myanmar have produced not only visible social fractures but also less tangible forms of psychological stress. Filmed across the years before and after the 2021 military coup, The Clinic attends to this quieter register of trauma – one that rarely presents itself as overtly political, yet is inseparable from political reality.

The Clinic was awarded the Grand Prize Visionary Award at Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) and was nominated for the Best Documentary Award at the Golden Horse Awards and has been shown at various international film festivals including IDFA.

Presented as part of Sine Screen’s Whose Homeland 25-26 film season, with the support of the BFI, awarding National Lottery funding.

Sine Screen is a London-based screening collective dedicated to showcasing independent cinema and moving-image works from across East and Southeast Asia. It aims to create space for critical dialogue around dominant representations of ESEA cultures and histories through diverse programming, and has received support from the British Film Institute and Arts Council England.