Burma VJ

EMPIRE AVENUE, PARK CITY

Insanely intense. That's probably the best way to describe this documentary film from Danish director Anders Ostergaard.

Armed with pocket-sized video cameras, a tenacious band of Burmese reporters face down death to expose the repressive regime controlling their country. In 2007, after decades of self-imposed silence, Burma became headline news across the globe when peaceful Buddhist monks led a massive rebellion. More than 100,000 people took to the streets protesting a cruel dictatorship that has held the country hostage for more than 40 years. Foreign news crews were banned, the Internet was shut down, and Burma was closed to the outside world.

We witness these events through the eyes of shaky, handheld footage shot entirely by the undercover reporters and then smuggled out of the country first via the Internet and then on the backs of elephants once network servers are shut down by the government. It's an emotionally raw experience seeing tensions build, watching people take to the streets in protest and then seeing the military respond with intense force leaving many dead and wounded. Culled from what must have been thousands of hours of eyewitness footage, this is not your typical documentary. You can't help but feel like you're right in the midst of the conflict as the reporters themselves fight to save their own lives. It's a view unlike any you've ever seen.

"Burma VJ" was preceded by the short film "Lies," directed by Jonas Odell, joining animation to three stories of lies told by various people.