Buddhist Film Foundation has joined a group of activists and filmmakers to create the Burma Spring Benefit Film Festival (BSBFF) to stream nationally starting June 4, 2021. The festival was previously scheduled to run through June 13 and will now run through June 20, 2021.
This effort is in response to the humanitarian and civil rights crisis triggered by the military coup in Burma. This fundraising event will feature over thirty films, a dozen speakers presented in daily live forums, and links to key resources.
Burma Spring Benefit Film Festival official website.
“We hope to reach many people with real information about what’s happening in my country right now,” said one of the organizers, Kenneth Wong, a Burmese-American author, translator, and Burmese language teacher at UC Berkeley. “Between the films and the speakers, attendees will get a wide range of views, both historic and current—an understanding of a complex country—a truly unique event.”
The Myanmar (Burma) military dismantled the democratically elected government on February 1, 2021, and detained Nobel Laureate and State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint, and other elected civilian government leaders and activists. Since then, the junta has arrested thousands of citizens, killed hundreds of unarmed protesters, conducted lethal airstrikes on ethnic villages, and seized the bank accounts of international NGOs. Many activists, journalists, lawmakers, and rights advocates have gone into hiding or exile. A national unity government (NUG) has been formed by leading legislators, ethnic minority leaders, and civil disobedience movement activists.
“There’s an urgent need for funds to provide humanitarian aid to the growing numbers of refugees on the borders, as well as to support the nonviolent democracy movement in a country completely controlled by the military,” Wong added. “We hope the opportunity to enjoy the Festival will inspire the generosity for which Americans are known.”
The films have been curated from all over the world, many chosen from international film festivals, with a very strong sampling of filmmakers from Burma. “The filmmaker community really responded to our urgent invitations,” said Gaetano Kazuo Maida, executive director of Buddhist Film Foundation, one of the organizers. “And distributors like Kino Lorber and Oscilloscope didn’t hesitate to make key films available.”
Among the titles are internationally celebrated films Aung San Suu Kyi—Lady of No Fear, Ghost Fleet, Burma VJ, Golden Kingdom, My Buddha Is Punk, and Burma Soldier. Well-known San Francisco filmmaker and Yangon Film School instructor Ellen Bruno, one of the festival programmers, has deep connections in Burma. “There’s an amazing community of young and not so young new filmmakers there, with great stories to tell and the skills to tell them. My kids are half Burmese (Karen) and I want them and all their friends to see the extraordinary work coming out of the country despite the enormous difficulties.” Her award-winning film Sacrifice, about the brutal sex trafficking there, will be part of the lineup.
When Bruno’s colleague, filmmaker Jeanne Marie Hallacy isn’t teaching digital media to refugee and migrant youth in San Francisco, she spends much of her time in Thailand and Burma making films about activists and artists there. Her Into the Current: Burma’s Political Prisoners has added resonance today. “I made this film just after activist Bo Kyi was released from prison after seven and a half years of beatings and torture. Others in the film have been rearrested on no legal grounds. The story is still relevant, unfortunately. I’ve asked all my filmmaker friends who can safely participate in this festival to share their work so people here will know what’s going on.”
The festival has assembled a lineup of key speakers, including two ministers of the recently formed National Unity Government, plus Wai Wai Nu (Women’s Peace and Development Network), Debbie Stothard (ALTSEAN-BURMA), Brad Adams (Human Rights Watch), Khin Ohmar (Progressive Voice), Eric Schwartz (Refugees International), and Christina Fink (GW University), along with a filmmaker forum.
“The Burma Spring Benefit Film Festival is our answer to the crisis created by the coup. We hope it spreads wide awareness of the urgent needs in Burma, and raises money to offer immediate help,” says organizer Alan Senauke, abbot of Berkeley Zen Center and founder of Clear View Project, an active humanitarian funder in Asia.
Burma Spring Benefit Film Festival on Facebook
Community Partners
Artists Beyond Boundaries, BuddhaFest, Buddhist Film Foundation, Burma Humanitarian Mission, Cinemata, Clear View Project, Code Refractory, Documentary Educational Resources, Earth Rights International, Engage Media, Ethical Traveler, Gandhi-King Global Network, Global Movement for Myanmar Democracy, Human Rights Center (UCB), Inquiring Mind, Insight LA, Insight Meditation Society, Institute for Asian Democracy, Institute for Cultural Activism, International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), Kachin Alliance, Kino Lorber, Kirana Productions, Lion’s Roar, Never Again Coalition, One Myanmar Community, Oscilloscope, Refugee and Immigrant Transitions, Refugees International, Sakse, Shoot Cameras Not Guns, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Tricycle Foundation, United Nations Association Film Festival, UC Berkeley Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, U.S. Campaign for Burma, and Zin Doc.
