Burma VJ

BURMA VJ: REPORTING FROM A CLOSED COUNTRY

Anders Østergaard
Denmark, 2008, 84 min

WEBSITE
www.burmavjmovie.com

AWARDS&FESTIVALS
Amnesty and DOX Award, CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival 2008
Joris Ivens and Movies that Matter Human Rights Award, IDFA 2008
World Cinema Documentary Editing Award, Sundance Film Festival 2009
Cinema for Peace International Human Rights Film Award, Berlinale 2009

PRESS QUOTE
“While the film refuses despair, it also declines to traffic in hopes that may prove, once again, illusory. Instead it tries, with a fascinating mixture of directness and sophistication, to tell the truth.” ~ AO Scott, New York Times

SYNOPSIS
Anders Østergaard’s award-winning documentary shows a rare inside look into the 2007 uprising in Myanmar through the cameras of the independent journalist group, the Democratic Voice of Burma.

While 100,000 people (including thousands of Buddhist monks) took to the streets to protest the country’s repressive regime that has held them hostage for over 40 years, foreign news crews were banned from entering and Internet access in the country was shut down.  Risking torture and life imprisonment, the Democratic Voice of Burma, a collective of approximately 30 anonymous and underground video journalists (VJs), recorded these historic and devastating events on handycams and smuggled the footage out of the country, where it was broadcast worldwide via satellite.