Never mind Avatar, George Clooney and that bomb-disposal team in the Iraq war. A grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy could be the star of this week’s Oscars, writes Christian Caryl over at Foreign Policy.
Burma VJ, a favorite for best documentary, features covertly filmed footage of the 1988 Saffron Revolution filmed by a small group of video journalists — the “VJs” of the film’s title — working the Oslo-based exile group Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a NED grantee.
Winning the Academy Award may bring some fleeting international attention to the film, but DVB activists are under no illusions that theirs is a long term and arduous struggle, as Caryl nots:
Even the small moral victories sometimes come at a depressing cost. As Krogsgaard told me, the regime has been known to use DVB footage as an aid in identifying and arresting members of the opposition: “It’s this unpleasant paradox — that every time you succeed, someone in Burma gets a harder time.” For the moment, Burma is silent once again. But the DVB’s trainers haven’t given up. They’re hard at work, in Thailand and elsewhere, preparing the next generation of video journalists. It will take as long as it takes.
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