Judith and I just announced the Full Frame / Working Films Award at the barbecue. Our award, sponsored by Chicken & Egg Pictures and the Ettinger Foundation, is for the film that holds the greatest potential for supporting serious grassroots organizing, equity, justice and human rights.

This year we gave the award to a film which much of it was shot with small digital camcorders. It is an instructive, how-to, inspiring primer on what citizen journalism is all about. It speaks to the power of individuals using what ever recording device necessary to capture the depths of human-rights abuse and the heights of human courage. It is also a lesson in how we as filmmakers can organize and work with each other — across the great divides of race, boarders, class and politics — passing the media baton one to another until it reaches the networks, the official reporters and the world’s stage to say “We are here… Do Something!”

We are proud to give this year’s award to Burma VJ. We are thrilled that it also won the Center for Documentary Studies Filmmaker Award as well as the Anne Dellinger Grand Jury Award.