This film is an excellent example what I am all about supporting and pursuing in regards to some of these issues of mediated communication as not only a primary tool in support of human rights work, but as human rights work. It is arguably the most important factor involved in it. The response to the Burma situation is only happening because of this kind of work. This film is a distillation of the very reason any human rights movement that does not encompass mediated communication within it’s core is incomplete. “Burma VJ” is in a nutshell a form of “Exhibit A” in making the case for such inclusion.

He lives in Thailand now, largely because he doesn‚t think he could hold up under torture. “I’m not sure how much I could keep secrets,” said the slight, shaggy-haired, 27-year-old Burmese video journalist, who is considered a public enemy by his country’s military junta.

Should his admission make him seem less than courageous, consider Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country. Directed by Anders Ostergaard of Denmark and opening on Wednesday at Film Forum in New York, the documentary chronicles the work of the Burmese journalist and his team of guerrilla cameramen during the “saffron revolution” of 2007, in which robed Buddhist monks joined street protests against Myanmar’s military dictatorship.

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Moviemaking philosophy aside, Burma VJ provides powerful evidence of the new ways in which oppression can be documented and world opinion swayed. “Technology is on our side,” said Micheline Lévesque, Asia specialist for Rights and Democracy. She said reports on human-rights violations, when done outside a country like Myanmar, are routinely ignored by countries that want to continue doing business with an oppressive regime. It’s harder to argue with a Burma VJ and the technology it champions, the eventual influence of which may be enormous. “Tibet is very interested,” Ms. Lévesque said, “and other movements in other countries are looking to what’s happening in Burma to use in their own movements.”

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But you go forward a hundred years, you have a situation in film where two cellphones talk to each other, and it’s impossible for a military dictatorship to keep secrets.

“Can you imagine,” Ms. Nevins added, “if someone had smuggled a camera into a concentration camp?”

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