Burma VJ Oscar Candidate

A handful of Danish and Swedish talents will be sitting in Hollywood's Kodak Theatre on March 7 anxiously waiting to hear if they will take back home the coveted Oscar statuette. Among them will be Anders Østergaard, director of Burma VJ, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Film. The film was produced by Denmark's Magic Hour Film, with support from Nordisk Film & TV Fond.

Østergaard has travelled the world with his images of Burma captured to the peril of their lives by undercover video reporters. Since its world premiere in November 2008, the film has been collecting festival awards such the Joris Ivens Award and Amnesty Award at IDFA 2008, World Cinema Documentary Editing Award at Sundance 2009, and Robert award 2009 for Best Feature Length Documentary. The film was sold by First Hand Films to broadcasters in over 100 territories, and was released theatrically in a dozen countries, such as the US (Oscilloscope Laboratories) and the UK (Dogwoof Pictures).

The internationally acclaimed Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig will compete with her English language film An Education in the top Oscar categories for Best Picture, Best Actress in a leading role (Carrey Mulligan) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Nick Hornby). Denmark is also represented in the category Best Short Film - Live Action with The New Tenants by Joachim Back. The film is produced by M&M Production, five times nominated for an Academy Award and twice winner for Election Night and This Charming Man. The New Tenants will be competing against Sweden's Instead of Abracadabra by Patrik Eklund, produced by Direktörn & Fabrikörn