LUCIDMEDIA

Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country

Written by Catherine Kustanczy Monday, 17 August 2009 00:00

Burma VJ was commercially released in Canada August 7th. It was a timely release, considering the leader of the Burmese opposition, Aun San Suu Kyi, was found guilty of violating an internal security law August 11th. Kyi has spent the last fourteen of twenty years in detention, serving her sentence mainly under house arrest. This latest charge means that Kyi’s sentence will be extended for another eighteen months, preventing her from taking part in Burma’s general elections next year. She has been a beacon for the pro-democracy movement in Burma, and indeed, she is a central figure in Burma VJ, which explores the fight against the country’s military junta using extraordinary DIY techniques.

Lucid Media had a chance to interview the director of Burma VJ, Anders Ostergaard, during the Hot Docs Film Festival this past May. In light of Kyi’s extended sentence, and in the worldwide calls for Burma to release Kyi, we thought it was timely and appropriate to revisit the film, and our chat with Ostergaard.

Filming public events, legal or not, has become a common sight. Many videos posted on sites like Youtube and Vimeo portray caught-in-the-moment acts, of concerts, news events, and political gatherings. Hands rising up with mobiles in-hand to capture the moment are the norm at live events. A filming unit with just one videographer, interviewing and filming simultaneously, is standard for many news organizations.

And yet in a place like Burma, that brand of free-to-film ethos is illegal. Burma has been ruled by a military junta since 1962. Its only news source is one provided by the government and filled with propaganda. The uprising of 2007 was documented by a group of video journalists, known as the DVB, or Democratic Voice of Burma, and it offered a sneak peek into the highly-controlled, deeply repressed country. Danish filmmaker Anders Ostergaard has documented the 2007 uprising in Burma VJ: Reporting From A Closed Country. It played as part of this year’s Hot Docs festival, and also screened earlier at Sundance.

Ostergaard weaves a deeply compelling tale that details the uprising from joyful start to quiet finish, using the threads of filmed footage taken by DVB journalists working undercover in Rangoon at the time. He also employs various recreations involving the main narrator, Joshua, and his telephone conversations with various colleagues. Joshua was based out of Thailand for the majority of the uprising, but had regular contact with the various VJs (or video-journalists) working to bring the news of Burma’s political situation to the world. Footage of various international newscasts –including those from CNN and the BBC –show the wider impact the DVB footage had.

Ostergaard says the project came about “slowly, gradually –not by one strike of lightning.” In 2005, talks began between the Danish director and a producer about doing a documentary exploring the largely-ignored situation in Burma. “The notion was broad, with lots of different approaches, but we soon realized if we went in ourselves, it would be about our problems filming.” It was a huge relief when he realized the DVB was based out of Oslo, Norway, operating out of a satellite station, and working with people collecting footage back in their native country. This distance between operations presented Ostergaard with a unique opportunity.

“It offered two levels to the story: one, raw footage; the other being their story –why they were doing it.” Ostergaard pauses, reflecting on the gargantuate task of the DVB members; it was their fierce determination that fired his curiosity –and awe. “It seemed so fruitless to do what they did… why on earth would they be doing it? Risking their lives? With no view of reward? That was my starting point.”

The uprising, which began with Buddhist monks marching through the streets, happened in the midst of the film’s planning, and as a result, the project became focused on “a young street reporter, thrown into the world of media as a casualist,” something borne out by the shaky, grainy footage and the fast, jerky movements that were often necessitated by various circumstances, not the least of which was hiding from government forces sent to crack down on the protestors.

Eighty percent of the film’s footage is made up of video taken by those working in Rangoon during the uprising, with the remainder being recreations of scenes and conversations. Joshua’s face is never shown, for security reasons, which also informed the script, narrated by Joshua himself. 

“I had to discuss every scene with (the DVB),” he says. “It was critical, otherwise I asked them about doing reconstructions… I’d simply ask people to ad-lib these conversations that I would select what would work with the story. Of course, I didn’t have to, but … in my view, it’s important to keep your integrity.”

Once the project was on a timeline, Ostergaard and his crew “started to see, very clearly, the uprising and the different stages they were going through. At the beginning, it was so fragile and there was a sense of, ‘Do we dare to do this?’ The monks started walking in silence, very fast-paced through the streets, nervously, and civilians were standing out of their way but were starting to applaud. It grew and grew, until a stage of euphoria, when people were demanding freedom… and then, of course, there was the crackdown.  We could study the uprising as it was happening, in well-defined stages.”

The DVB journalists could be viewed as pioneers for citizen-journalism in terms of the way in which they trail-blazed their way to worldwide prominence using very little in the way of means or resources, and yet Ostergaard isn’t sure. “They’re too busy to reflect on what they’re doing, really,” he says. “In fact, the whole idea of setting up a satellite TV station was fragile. They had a hard time getting funding, explaining this was important, convincing the government they could do something meaningful with a contingent of semi-professional reporters. They depend on NGO funding, and had a hard time convincing people they could do something. Of course, the uprising was a major point for them to prove what they could do –it was not only with bravery but intelligence they proved they are journalists.”

Burma VJ will run through August 20th at Toronto’s Royal Cinema.
For more information, go to http://burmavjmovie.com.