Burma VJ leads SFIFF Winners

“Burma VJ” Leads SFIFF Winners
by Peter Knegt (May 7, 2009)
A scene from Anders Ostergaard's "Burma VJ." Image courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories.Anders Østergaard’s “Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country” took home the Golden Gate Award for best investigate documentary, which comes with a $25,000 cash prize, last night as the 52nd San Francisco International Film Festival came to a close. The film, being released in theaters next week through Oscilloscope, follows the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), aka the Burma VJs. Compiled from the handheld footage of the DVB, the film details the VJs as they themselves become the target of the Burmese government.

Other major winners include Gaël Métroz’s “Nomad’s Land,” which won the $20,000 Golden Gate Award for best documentary feature. Previous winners in this category include Yung Chang’s “Up The Yangtze,” Shahar Cohen and Halil Efrat’s “Souvenirs,” and Michael Glawogger’s “Workingman’s Death.” Jim Granato’s “D Tour” won the award for Bay Area doc, while Aida Begic’s “Snow” won the New Directors Award. Both carry $15,000 prizes.

The San Francisco Film Society, which puts on SFIFF, additionally announced the SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant, which they co-award with the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. The $35,000 grant, given to “a filmmaker for a narrative feature film, with a social justice theme, being made in the San Francisco Bay Area,” was awarded to Richard Levien for the screenwriting/script development of “La Migra.” The film follows eleven-year-old Alondra, who comes home from school to find that her mother, Guadalupe, has been taken by the immigration police. “Every day across the U.S. families are separated, often for life, by the deportation process,” SFFS stated. “‘La Migra’ makes this story personal.”

The complete list of Golden Gate Award winners is below. Check back with indieWIRE for a dispatch from the festival.


Golden Gate Award Documentary Feature Winners

Investigative Documentary Feature:
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country, Anders Østergaard (Denmark/Sweden 2008)
· Winner receives a $25,000 cash prize