Edition 2010

Burma VJ: Reporting from a closed country

Armed with small handy cams, undercover Video Journalists in Burma keep up the flow of news from their closed country. Going beyond the occasional news clip from Burma, acclaimed director 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. 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 now tell a much bigger story. ”Joshua,” age 27, is one of the young video journalists, who works undercover to counter the propaganda of the military regime. Foreign TV crews are suddenly banned from the country, so it’s left to Joshua and his crew to keep the revolution alive on TV screens the world over. 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. 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.

Theme:

Human rightsPolitics

Anders Østergaard

He graduated from the Danish School of Media and Journalism in 1991 after training at Central Television, London. Østergaard’s preferred approach involves both observational and expository documentary and is often based on a combination of archive material and new recordings, combining a sense of documentary authenticity with psychological intimacy. Østergaard was awarded the prize for best documentary at the Odense Film Festival in 1999 for The Magus, about the renowned Swedish jazz pianist Jan Johansson. He is writer and director of the international co-production Tintin et moi (2003) and of the documentary about one of Denmark’s most popular rock bands, Gasolin (2006), which was a national box-office success with almost a quarter of a million tickets sold. Burma VJ – Reporting from a Closed Country (2008) marked Østergaard’s big international breakthrough, receiving an Oscar nomination and taking a record number of international awards, including IDFA’s Joris Ivens and Movies That Matter. In 2015, Østergaard received the Danish Dreyer Award in recognition of his extraordinary artistic career in the Danish film business.

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Technical details

Year:

2008

Credits

Direction
Anders Østergaard
Executive Production
Lise Lense-Møller
Sound
Marting Hennel
Distribution
DocsBarcelona Distribution
Production
Magic Hour Films ApS
Film Editing
Janus Billeskov Jansen, Thomas Papapetros
Script
Anders Østergaard, Jan Krogsgaard

Screening times

Awards