Anders Østergaard: Burma-VJ

... that has the subtitle, ”reporting from a closed country” is content-wise a totally shocking experience. There you are in the middle of a military brutality that is filmed by courageous video journalists, who know that a documentation like this can only be done by them, and not by the foreign news teams that get into the country. And the reason why it touches you so much, is the stylistical approach that Østergaard has chosen. In an unsentimental, almost cool tone, he builds a story with a main vj character who is a kind of executive producer for all the cameramen, who turn up whenever there are demonstrations, most of the time with hidden cameras, and constantly reporting back by mobile phone on what happens. A drama is created through a classical dramaturgical structure but there is space left for the audience to think about what is shown.

We know many of these shootings before from the tv news, but here they are put into a context of a well told story that will catch the attention of an audience all over the world. A cry for help!

The film won first prizes at cph:dox and idfa 2008.

Danish journalist Lars Movin has interviewed the director and his editor, veteran master Janus Billeskov Jansen in the English language magazine ”Film”. A very interesting inside to the story of the film.  

http://www.dfi.dk/tidsskriftetfilm/64/burma.htm
http://www.dfi.dk/tidsskriftetfilm/64/burmabilleskov.htm

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