Burma VJ (2009)
Kamoli Films, Magic Hour Films

Description

Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, the acclaimed filmmaker, Anders Østergaard, brings us close to the video journalists who deliver the footage. Though risking torture and life in jail, courageous young citizens of Burma live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country. Armed with small handycams the Burma VJs stop at nothing to make their reportages from the streets of Rangoon. Their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered as free usage for international media. The whole world has witnessed single event clips made by the VJs, but for the very first time, their individual images have been carefully put together and at once, they tell a much bigger story. The film offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching.

”Joshua”, age 27, is one of the young video journalists, who works undercover to counter the propaganda of the military regime. Joshua is suddenly thrown into the role as tactical leader of his group of reporters, when the monks lead a massive but peaceful uprising against the military regime. After decades of oblivion - Burma returns to the world stage, but at the same time foreign TV crews are banned from entering the country, so it is left to Joshua and his crew to document the events and establish a lifeline to the surrounding world. It is their footage that keeps the revolution alive on TV screens all over.

Amidst marching monks, brutal police agents, and shooting military the reporters embark on their dangerous mission, working around the clock to keep the world informed of events inside the closed country. Their compulsive instinct to shoot what they witness, rather than any deliberate heroism, turns their lives into that of freedom fighters.
The regime quickly understands the power of the camera and the reporters are constantly chased by government intelligence agents who look at the ”media saboteurs” as the biggest prey they can get.
During the turbulent days of September, Joshua finds himself on an emotional rollercoaster between hope and despair, as he frantically tries to keep track of his reporters in the streets while the great uprising unfolds and comes to its tragic end.
With Joshua as the psychological lens, the Burmese condition is made tangible to a global audience so we can understand it, feel it, and smell it.

Tags

Oscar nomination, Sundance award winner, Burma

Collected reviews and ratings

10 Austin Chronicle | Marc Savlov

.. from a journalistic perspective – and what my heart and mind offer, pulse racing, eyes tearing – Burma VJ is a masterpiece. You simply cannot tear your eyes from the events unfolding slowly, bravely, tragically on the screen.
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9.0 New York Times | A.O. Scott

“Burma VJ” is a rich, thought-provoking film not only because of the story it tells, which is by turns inspiring and devastatingly sad, but also because of the perspective it offers on the role that new communications technologies can play in political change.
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8.0 San Francisco Chronicle | Walter Addiego

"Burma VJ" documents the work of such courageous journalists, who, at the risk of imprisonment or worse, film antigovernment activities using small consumer cameras. The material is smuggled to the Democratic Voice of Burma, a site in Norway described as a television station in exile. From there, the footage is beamed into Burma via satellite.
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8.0 Time Out New York

... embedded within this meta-testament to the brave Burmese souls who risk all is a reminder that, in our era of info overload (too much imagery, too many screens!), technology is the next-gen frontier for fighting oppression.
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8.0 Exclaim! | Allan Tong

The VJs film from distant balconies and behind bushes, all within shooting distance of soldiers. Their footage is dramatic, exhilarating and tragic. Again, given state censorship, all foreign journalists have been banned, which leaves DVB to tell the tale. And they tell it with clarity and conviction.
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8.0 Slant Magazine | Joseph Jon Lanthier

Burma VJ is a lopsided testament to the noble journalists it profiles, but it effectively documents the precious and nearly deviant luster mere information can develop under the appropriate circumstances.
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8.0 The Guardian | Philip French

Sub-titled "Reporting from a Closed Country", this admirable Danish documentary brings together remarkable footage covertly shot in the streets of Rangoon by courageous Burmese video journalists to be screened abroad
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8.0 Telegraph.co.uk | Sukhdev Sandhu

A brave group, calling itself The Democratic Voice of Burma, armed itself with digicams to record demonstrations, give voice to protestors, and to capture evidence of military brutality. That footage, smuggled to Norway via Thailand, is raw and compelling. The story of how it was sneaked out is worthy of the best thrillers. Burma VJ is crucial testament to the will of a suffering people to ensure the world does not forget them.
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7.5 Combustible Celluloid | Jeffrey M. Anderson

It's powerful, to be sure, but the most interesting scene is one in which two reporters discuss the impact of their work; are they really changing anything? It's a good question, and one that Burma VJ takes one small step toward answering.
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7.5 The Documentary Blog | Jay C

Burmese VJ is a powerful film that gives you a rare inside look at one of the world’s most secretive and repressive countries
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7.0 Eye For Film | Angus Wolfe Murray

This film is a testament, a witness, a scoop, a cry for help, a recognition, a suppression, a determination to be heard, an act of faith, a murmur of the heart, a defiance, a defeat.
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6.0 PopMatters.com | Cynthia Fuchs

Aung San Suu Kyi embodies the problem of visibility that drives Burma VJ. She and the nation are “still here” (Joshua describes her as “still in our hearts”), but ever at risk of being forgotten, pushed off TV screens in other parts of the world by other news. She appears briefly in the film, a slight, blurred figure shot from a distance. She greets a group of Buddhist monks who have arrived at her door in September 2007. It’s a striking image, captured by an undercover camera during Burma’s most recent short-lived resistance movement, led by hundreds of monks and joined by thousands of citizens, including students and workers.
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