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Myanmar "VJ" film exposes 2007 protests, crackdown
Fri Jul 17, 2009 12:12pm EDT
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By Mirja Spernal and Mike Collett-White
LONDON (Reuters) - A film documenting a group of clandestine reporters secretly filming the 2007 street protests in Myanmar and crackdown by the military junta hit cinemas in Britain this week to warm applause from the critics.
"Burma VJ," directed by Denmark's Anders Ostergaard, takes the viewer to the heart of events two years ago which, without the courage of video journalists on the ground taking huge risks, would have gained far less international attention.
Led by "Joshua," the VJs covertly filmed the drama unfolding on the streets.
The demonstrations started in August 2007 as a protest over living standards before attracting the revered Buddhist monkhood and snowballing into the biggest challenge to military rule since a 1988 uprising. At least 31 people were killed.
Often shaky footage of monks parading along roads, and thousands of people leaning from balconies and lining the streets to cheer them, is interspersed with soldiers opening fire on the protesters who flee in terror.
Journalists capture the tension as panicked crowds rush up the stairs of a darkened building to escape the authorities, while Joshua keeps in contact with his team of cameramen on the telephone and frets about their wellbeing.
The journalists smuggled footage to Thailand, from where Joshua, who kept his real name a secret, sent it to Norway, where the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) (www.dvb.no) is based.
DVB is a media outlet based in Norway that aims to provide independent news to people inside Myanmar. It also became an important source of information for international broadcasters in 2007, because foreign media access was so limited.
"I know the risks, but we understand that there has to be somebody to take the risk to break other people's fear," Joshua told Reuters at the British premiere of Burma VJ this week.
"There will be somebody who starts and I decided that I have to be the one to start."
TRAGIC SACRIFICE
Joshua described some of the sacrifices he had made.
"Since I began this job I disconnected with (my family), that's the first thing I had to sacrifice," Joshua said.
"I don't want them to become hostages of the authorities and I don't want to compromise my job with my family. That's why I disconnected with them because maybe they can pressurize my family or harm them to pressurize me to leave my job.
"Sometimes I miss my family. I want to meet them, I miss my old neighborhood, you know everybody in my neighborhood loves me, but I cannot go back to them." Continued...
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