Burma VJ

Armed with pocket-sized video cameras, a tenacious band of Burmese reporters face down death to expose the repressive regime controlling their country. In 2007, after decades of self-imposed silence, Burma became headline news across the globe when peaceful Buddhist monks led a massive rebellion. More than 100,000 people took to the streets protesting a cruel dictatorship that has held the country hostage for more than 40 years. Foreign news crews were banned, the Internet was shut down, and Burma was closed to the outside world. So how did we witness these events? Enter the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), aka the Burma VJs. Compiled from the shaky handheld footage of the DVB, acclaimed filmmaker Anders Ostergaard’s Burma VJ pulls us into the heat of the moment as the VJs themselves become the target of the Burmese government. Their tactical leader, code-named Joshua, oversees operations from a safe hiding place in Thailand. Via clandestine phone calls, Joshua dispenses his posse of video warriors, who covertly film the abuses in their country, then smuggle their footage across the border into Thailand. Joshua ships the footage to Norway, where it is broadcast back to Burma and the world via satellite. Burma VJ plays like a thriller, all the more scary because it is true.

Recipient of the World Cinema Documentary Editing Award.

CAST

Anders Ostergaard - Anders Østergaard was born in 1965 in Copenhagen and graduated from the Danish School of Journalism in 1991. After five years in advertising and public relations, he wrote and directed his first documentary, Johannesburg Revisited. An international breakthrough followed in 2004 with Tintin and Me, and in 2006 he launched Gasolin'—the best-selling documentary in the history of Danish cinema. Both Tintin and Me and Gasolin' won the Bodil Award for the best documentary film of their year.

Screenings:

Sat. Jan 17 11:30 a.m. - BURMA173D Holiday Village Cinema III, Park City
Sat. Jan 17 9:00 p.m. - BURMA17SN Screening Room, Sundance Resort
Sun. Jan 18 11:30 p.m. - BURMA18PL Prospector Square Theatre, Park City
Wed. Jan 21 9:45 p.m. - BURMA21BN Broadway Centre Cinemas V, SLC
Thu. Jan 22 9:15 p.m. - BURMA224N Holiday Village Cinema IV, Park City