'Burma VJ' Misses Out at Oscars

“Burma VJ,” a documentary about the September 2007 mass uprising in Rangoon that was nominated for an Academy Award, missed out on Sunday as a film about the secret slaughter of dolphins in a Japanese town titled “The Cove” took the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature of 2009.

The announcement was made at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, California, where the Academy Award, or Oscar, was presented to “The Cove's” director Fisher Stevens by actor Matt Damon.

An Oscar statue stands on the red carpet outside the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles for the 82nd Academy Awards. (Photo: AP)

“Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country” tells the story of how Burmese video journalists took to the streets and filmed the September 2007 mass demonstrations in Rangoon. It was among five documentaries nominated for Best Documentary Feature.

“I was very excited during the award ceremony,” said Aye Chan Naing, the executive director of exiled news agency Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) . “But when 'Burma VJ' missed out, I was upset. We need to do more to make people aware of what is happening in Burma.”

The narrator of “Burma VJ,” Joshua, told The Irrawaddy on Monday: “I watched the Oscars live on TV. I thought “The Cove” was very good. But it appears that [in Hollywood] people think dolphins are more important than the killing of Burmese monks and students.”

“Burma VJ” has already won 40 awards, including “World Cinema Documentary Film Editing” and “Golden Gate Persistence of Vision” prizes.

Well-known Burmese actor Kyaw Thu told The Irrawaddy on Monday that those involved in “Burma VJ” should be proud to be nominated even though they missed out on an award.

Most of the material for the film was shot by Burmese video journalists at great personal risk and smuggled out of the country to the Norway-based DVB. Danish  film-maker Anders Østergaard directed the film, which was released to wide acclaim last year.

The Iraq War drama "The Hurt Locker" won Best Picture and five other prizes at the Academy Awards.

A more detailed list of Oscar winners and nominees can be found at: http://oscar.go.com/oscar-night/winners.