BURMA VJ AWARDS

CPH:DOX 2008
(DENMARK)
Amnesty Award
DOX:Awards
Amsterdam, IDFA 2008
(HOLLAND)
Joris Ivens Award
Movies that Matter Human Rights Award
Sundance Film Festival 2009
(USA)
World Cinema Documentary Editing Award
Berlinale 2009
(GERMANY)
Cinema for Peace International Human Rights Film Award
Bodil (Danish Golden Globe) 2009:
(DENMARK)
Best Documentary
Boulder International Film Festival 2009
(USA)
Grand Prix
Robert  Danish Film Academy Award 2009
(DENMARK)
Best Long Documentary
ZagrebDox 2009
(CROATIA)
Movies that Matter Human Rights Award
Special mention
 ONE WORLD 2009
(CZECH REPUBLIC)
The Vaclav Havel Special Award
Student Jury Award
11th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 
(GREECE)
AUDIENCE AWARD
Amnesty International Award
FULL FRAME  DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL
(USA)
Anne Dellinger Grand Jury Award
Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award
Full Frame / Working Films Award
ITS ALL TRUE – 14th International Documentary Film Festival – Sao Paulo
(BRAZIL)
Best Documentary

BURMA VJ AWARDS.doc 0.05MB

In Burma ”Joshua”, a young video journalist of 27, works undercover to counter the military regimes propaganda and keep the world informed about the state of affairs inside the closed country. Armed with small handycams Joshua and a handful of other reporters, venture out into the streets to make news reportages at great personal risk. Their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite.

When, in September 2007, peaceful Buddhist monks led a massive uprising against Burma’s military regime, Burma - after decades of oblivion - suddenly returned to the world stage. Foreign TV crews were banned from entering the country, so it was left to Joshua and his crew to document the events. It was their footage that kept the revolution alive on TV screens all over the world. Joshua is thrown into the role as tactical leader of his group of reporters. Amidst marching monks, brutal police officers, and shooting military they embark on their dangerous mission and work around the clock to keep the world informed. 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.

WG film is co-producing a film by the eminent director Anders Østergaard on the Burma VJ:s. This is a co production with Magic Hour Films in Copenhagen. The Swedish support comes from SVT and Swedish Film Institue.

Reviews

"... It is quite simply superb in all its shocking horror, and one may only conclude that Østergaard and his award-winning Burma VJ deserves a huge audience."
Urban, Louise Kidde Sauntved

"Anders Østergaard’s award-winning film on video reporters in Burma tells the story of tiny hopes amidst a reign of terror.
It is a film one drinks in."
Politiken, Dorte Hygum Sørensen

"Burma VJ is an impressive film. Tough, bold, and in your face (...) the images speak for themselves. It is not difficult to understand why the jury of the major documentary festival in Amsterdam chose it as the best documentary film of the year and as film of the year in the Movies that Matter category."
Jyllandsposten, Sophie Engberg Sonne

"The documentary Burma VJ, which has already won major awards, fills viewers with a powerful combination of fright, sympathy and indignation."
Berlingske Tidende, Ebbe Iversen

"Anders Østergaard made his mark as one of the best documentary directors in the country ages ago. (...)
[As] a tribute to a series of citizens who try to make a difference against all the odds, the film is unsurpassed and completely inescapable.
Ekstra Bladet, Henrik Queitsch

"The anonymous cameramen of Burma provide vital, courageous journalism, which Anders Østergaard documents convincingly and admirably."
Ekko, Carsten Jensen

"A moving, powerful documentary that makes the predicament of this oppressed nation tangible and vivid, showing us that in Burma too the dictatorship has got to fall.
‘Our cause, our cause” they chant in the film. Precisely: our cause, too."
Nordjyske, Bent Stenbakken

Movies That Matter Award, IDFA 2008

" Burma VJ's ­- Reporting from a closed country by Anders Østergaard, with 'Joshua' and his fellow cameramen, is not just a thrilling inside report on last year's uprising in one of the most isolated countries in the world, but also an intelligent analysis of the democratic potential of modern technology. At a time when foreign journalists were not allowed into the country, reporters from within the community picked up their small camera's, risked their life and sent their images across the world. Burma had been off the world's radar for two decades. But these cameramen brought it back from Jupiter to Planet Earth. They offer us the initial tension, the unimaginable image of a procession of monks chanting through the streets of Rangoon, the utter excitement of the crowds on the rooftops, the lonely pixels of Aung San Suu Kyi's face at her gateway, the courage of people gathering yet again on the morning after the army moved in, and then the heartbreak. After
making the people of Burma visible to the world, the cameramen themselves disappeared. In the end, Burma VJ left us breathless, sad, angry and yet somehow hopeful. It is with this hope that we offer Anders Ostergaard and his Birmese colleagues the Movies That Matter Award."

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