Midwives, shot by first-time feature documentary director Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing, centers on two midwives, Nyo Nyo and Hla. The women live in a remote region of Myanmar – an overwhelmingly Buddhist country that’s being accused of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority community.

Hla runs a makeshift medical clinic in a Rakhine outpost. She is Buddhist. Her apprentice, Nyo Nyo, is Muslim. Every day Hla risks her safety by helping Muslim patients because the Buddhists see them as ‘intruders.’ Muslims are not very fond of Hla either. They don’t even speak the same language. So, that’s where Nyo Nyo comes in. As a midwife, she is only allowed to treat Muslim women and must refrain from helping Buddhist patients, which makes for a very unique dynamic at the clinic.

As tension between the religious groups rises, more villagers come out on the streets to encourage their neighbors to “cleanse this area of Muslims.” Even though Nyo Nyo’s family has lived in the area for generations, they are still considered outcasts. She’s constantly being referred to as a ‘Klar’ because of her darker skin tone. In one scene, she recalls how soldiers searched the village for “Muslim terrorists,” burned down homes, raped women, and killed innocent people. “We were too frightened to stay in the village,” she says. The sound of gunfire outside is almost an everyday occurrence for them.

The Rohingya are imprisoned, which means that Nyo Nyo is not even allowed to travel for work. She would need a travel permit if she were to travel to one of the bigger cities, but those permits are denied almost instantly. All she can do now is dream. Dream of a life with her sister in Yangon. She’s determined to learn more about medicine and midwifery. Maybe one day it will be possible “if she saves enough money for classes and to hire a private car that will take her there,” she says.

Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing started her filmmaker career in 2006 in Myanmar and worked as a director, producer, editor, and sound recordist ever since. The story of Midwives is very close to Hlaing’s heart as she was born in Rakhine State, in the western part of Myanmar. In a recent interview with Women and Hollywood she stated that, when she was a kid, Buddhists and Muslims seemed to be able to live somewhat peacefully side by side. It was not until 2012, when she was working as a filmmaker in Yangon, that she started to hear about the Rohingya conflict: “I refused to believe that the hate speech I was hearing in the media at that time was reflective of reality. So, I went back to my hometown to better understand myself, my people, where all this anger and hatred was coming from. On that visit, I met two extraordinary women, a Buddhist midwife and her Muslim apprentice.”

It took Hlaing five years to capture the documentary. It offers a rare insight into a country that has long been misunderstood. Amidst chaos and violence, we get to see a glimpse of hope, courage, and dreams.

Midwives is competing in the World Cinema Documentary category at Sundance this year. It’s Hlaing’s feature documentary debut.