Behind the Lens

"Burma VJ" was this year’s winner of the coveted Joris Ivens Award for best documentary over 60 minutes in length, This is the top award at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam, the largest documentary film festival in the world. The film celebrates the courage of the Oslo-based Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a group of exiled Burmese journalists who secretly film the abuse of peoples in Burma. The film recounts the efforts of a small group of independent video journalists (VJs) who risked their safety, freedom and lives to record popular protests and the military government’s brutal response. The co-writer of the film, Jan Krogsgaard, spoke to The Irrawaddy's Violet Cho about the film:

Answer: Burma VJ has been selected for screenings at all major festivals around the world. I think it has received 22 awards and 2 special mentions up till now. HBO and several other TV-stations will broadcast it soon, and it has just been released for DVD sales in the USA and UK.

And recently former Czechoslovakian president Vaclav Havel showed the movie to Hillary Clinton when Obama was in Prague. The Czechs are currently the chairman of the EU, and they use the film in their campaign for human rights.

Q: What do you think the impact of the film has been so far?

A: I presented it at the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the audience was very touched.

It must seem like a breath of fresh air to the large international community who are concerned about the destiny of the people of Burma. It seems like they have been waiting for this for a long time, waiting for a move from the Burmese people that would show that the Burmese were trying to help themselves. It has to come from the Burmese first.

The film also shows how it is possible to bring about change by using a mobile phone to film something of significance, and to connect it to a TV-station willing to expose the footage. This mobile technology could initiate a revolution, or even a war under certain circumstances, but it would best of all would be if it could bring about peace. 
But we are talking about cameras, not weapons.

I do believe that the movie will bring something positive to people inside Burma. New VJ’s will emerge from the underground, and others will be encouraged to do new things.
 
However, there is a downside, and this is that people filmed in the street get exposed, and this might help the Burmese military intelligence as well.

In Burma, positive news always carries the risk of potential disaster within.

Q: How did you meet Joshua and how was the decision made to make him the main character?

A: We were following a training session in 2007 in which around a dozen DVB VJ’s were getting basic training on how to do short news programs. We were looking for our protagonist, which is how we met Joshua. He had good humor and laughed easily, and he was endearing to those around him. He spoke okay English, had experience in journalism, was serious about his mission, narrated well, and he seemed to be able to create a necessary mix of irreverence and prudence while maintaining a sense of immediacy, of being in the here and now.

Q: Do you think he is a hero?

A: one Burmese woman providing shelter for Burmese girls who had been victims of trafficking in Thailand once said to me: “Jan, we are like people without protection protecting people without protection”.

Joshua and his fellow VJ’s do not have the luxury of being embedded journalists. It takes guts to do what any undercover reporter in Burma is doing, and they are just ordinary people like you and I.

If a hero is a person who, without protection, shows exceptional courage for the well-being of others—then, yes, he or she is heroic.

I followed Joshua to Rangoon as a kind of mission control, going there during the Water Festival in April, ostensibly to film the festival, but this was a cover for our real mission. I had three phone numbers I could use to contact him, and they just closed down one by one. It was nerve-racking.