The Tasang Dam, also known as the Mong Ton Dam, is a proposed large dam project on the Salween River in Shan State that has been opposed by locals ever since in was proposed in the early 1990s. It is the first of five dam projects the government want to impose, despite local opposition.
The area around the proposed dam has been the frontline for ethnic wars in Burma for a long time, and many of the villagers in this film were forcibly relocated by the Burmese army in the 90s, and either live in Thailand, or lived in hiding until it was safe to return.
The film follows the history of the project and what it has meant for the local villagers over the past 25 years of resistance, which would flood traditional lands and destroy farms and homes on a piece of land around the size of Singapore.
This film was made in 2016 when the protests were ongoing, as they probably are to this day, but large dam projects are largely discredited by now, as they never benefit local communities, and nothing has been done yet to build the dam, and we can only hope that after all these years of suffering the project will be abandoned and the people able to return to their ancestral lands.
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to see an album of stills click here