Educational Media Reviews Online

In this documentary, Jeanne Hallacy conveys the atrocities that were perpetrated by the Burmese army against two different ethnic minority groups, the Rohingya and Kachin. The events are relayed to the viewer with limited narration, primarily using the voices of women raped or otherwise traumatized by the Burmese military’s lawless, violent actions. The film focuses on the Rohingya women in a refugee camp in Bangladesh who fled from the Rakhine State in western Burma, as well as the families of two murdered teachers in the northern state of Kachin, where the Kachin people have experienced armed conflict in their region, and many have fled to refugee camps for internally displaced people. The film bounces between these two geographical areas to show the similarities between the atrocities, sharing grass-roots action to empower women in their efforts to hold the military accountable. As the women organize and connect with one another, they begin to find outlets to speak out and to share their stories with one another, their fellow citizens, and a global audience. The events and experiences that are depicted in this film are deeply traumatic and violate the personhood of the survivors; the strength and resilience of each woman portrayed in the film is clear.

Additional context would help to place these events within the larger scale of the political situation in Burma. While briefly alluding to the transition from military dictatorship to democracy, the film never mentions Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to power, or directly refers to her trampling of democratic principles, nor her defense of the Burmese military’s genocide against the Rohingya. One of the film’s subjects speaks emotionally about her ruined hopes for citizenship under the new democracy, and viewers feel the despair that permeates the situation. The long trail of political turmoil and repression continues under Suu Kyi’s rule. While the topic of sexual violence as a military weapon is the primary focus of the film, the relationship between the government and its military are crucial to address in order to achieve peace, justice, stability, and full citizenship rights for every person in Burma. The documentary chooses not to make this connection explicit.

The film is recommended for more mature audiences, college-age and above. Educators may want to alert students that the documentary contains graphic images of the two young teachers who were brutally raped and stabbed to death.

Awards:

Documentary Short Honorable Mention, Oneota Film Festival, 2020; Best Short Documentary, UN Women Global Voices Film Festival, 2019; Best Short Documentary, Freedom Film Festival, Malaysia, 2019; Best Short Documentary, North Dakota Human Rights and Arts Festival, 2019; Best Short Documentary, Woodpecker International Film Festival, India, 2019

Published and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Anyone can use these reviews, so long as they comply with the terms of the license.