Burma VJ

Documentary Feature, Special Screenings
D: Anders Ostergaard

This film is the backstory to the media footage we watched on TV in the summer of 2007, when 100,000 Myanmar citizens – joined by the country’s usually apolitical Buddhist monks – marched against a 40-year-long repressive military regime. (The iconic image of the all-too brief and horribly doomed uprising was that of the orange-robed monks marching through Rangoon with their black alms bowls held upside down, indicating their refusal to take alms from the regime.) Recording it all surreptitiously with video cameras and cell phones and then transmitting it to the world was a cadre of brave Myanmar video journalists, members of the Norway-based Democratic Voice of Burma. The film is a compelling presentation of a tragic situation, but it has been criticized, and rightly so, for its liberal use of re-enactments, which are only generally acknowledged at the beginning of the film and not specifically denominated.

This article appears in March 27 • 2009.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

SUPPORT US