Burma VJ

Anders Østergaard's documentary, from the True Stories strand, captures the bravery of the young Burmese video journalists who, though risking torture and life in jail, live the essence of journalism as they insist on keeping up the flow of news from their closed country.

Armed with small handycams, the Burma VJs stop at nothing to make their reportages; their material is smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered as free usage for international media.

The whole world has witnessed single event clips made by the VJs, but for the very first time, their individual images have been put together with Østergaard's sparingly-used reconstruction to tell a riveting story which offers a unique insight into high-risk journalism and dissidence in a police state, while at the same time providing a thorough documentation of the historical and dramatic days of September 2007, when the Buddhist monks started marching.

Chris Petit's 'Content'

Tuesday 09 March 2010

10PM

More4

Thirty years ago, Chris Petit directed Radio On, now considered a road movie cult classic which caught the zeitgeist of the Britain of the time.

Now showing in the True Stories strand, Content is described by Petit as, "an ambient 21st century road movie", a meditative essay inspired by the almost trancelike state the act of driving can bring

With the narrative provided by Hanns Zischler, the film is variously about memories of other journeys from Texas through to Poland, the impact of modern technology and the rise of the huge impersonal factory sheds which now line roads throughout the world.

Which Way Home

Tuesday 17 November 2009

10PM

More4

The Oscar-nominated Which Way Home follows unaccompanied child migrants as they journey through Mexico on a freight train they call 'The Beast', hoping to reach the USA

Rebecca Cammisa's film tracks the stories of children like Olga and Freddy, nine-year-old Hondurans who are desperately trying to reach their families in Minnesota; Jose, a ten-year-old El Salvadoran who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention centre; and Kevin, a canny, streetwise 14-year-old Honduran, whose mother hopes that he will reach New York City and send money back to his family.

These are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow. They are the stories most people never hear about: the invisible ones.