
Myanmar Diaries. 2022. Netherlands/Myanmar/Norway. Directed by the Myanmar Film Collective. North American premiere. In Burmese; English subtitles. 70 min.
Ten young citizen journalists and self-taught filmmakers are to thank for this rallying cry of a film, which calls attention to the harrowing reality of life in Myanmar after the military coup of February 2021. Episodic and anonymously made, Myanmar Diaries fluidly combines mobile phone footage bearing witness to the junta’s violent crackdown on its citizens with dramatic reenactments and more poetic first-person reflections on survival and resistance. Canny to the ways cinematic stories can outlast headlines, the Myanmar Film Collective bravely and ingeniously deliver their message of civil disobedience. Winner of the 2022 Berlinale Documentary Award.