Burma VJ

While a hundred thousand people (including thousands of Buddhist monks) took to the streets in 2007 to protest Myanmar's oppressive regime that had held them hostage for more than forty years, foreign news crews were banned from entering the country and the internet was shut down. Anders Østergaard's award-winning documentary is a rare inside look at the uprising through the independent journalist group Democratic Voice of Burma, a collective of thirty anonymous and underground video journalists (VJs) who recorded these historic and dramatic events on Handycams, smuggled the footage out of the country, and broadcasted it to the world via satellite. Risking torture and life imprisonment, the VJs vividly documented the brutal clashes with the military and undercover police—even after they themselves became targets of the authorities.

A conversation between professor Robert Buswell, director of the Center for Buddhist Studies at UCLA, and Khen Rinpoche Lobzang Tsetan, the Abbott of the Tashi Lhunpo Tibetan Monastery in Bylakuppe, India, follows the screening of the film.

Bing Theater | Free admission for Southern Asian Art Council members and students with ID, $5 LACMA members, $10 general admission | Tickets: 323 857-6010 or purchase online.

Sponsored by Southern Asian Art Council
Image: Courtesy Oscilloscope Laboratories
This is not a film department program. For more information contact the Southern Asian Art Council at 323 857-6528.