"The main purpose of this report is to analyze the documentary feature film called 'The Opium War' based on the civilians' antidrug movement in the author's home place, Myanmar's Kachin state. The film mainly focuses on the antidrug movement 'Pat Jasan' organized by Myanmar civilians and which literally translates in the local Kachin language by "stop and clean off drugs". This documentary does not follow one single character but a group of civilians who are activists in the antidrug movement. The film covers a series of incidents that occur between the antidrugcivilian activists and farmers producing opium. The report is a step-by-step analysis of the film's production process from the conception of the idea to the completion of the film within the period of the years 2016 to 2017 [...] The main shortcoming of this film is that the author didn't manage to obtain as much information from the government and from the drug lords as he wished. But not only some police officials declined interviews, but basically the crew was risking the whole time being arrested by the officials for exposing the drug problem to a wider audience. Additionally it was life-threatening to approach too much the drug lords and the opium farmers who woul become aggressive towards people with cameras. Because of those issues coming from both the police and the drug lords the crew had to shoot many of the scenes in the film secretly from rootops or from trees in order to avoid being spotted. Still while shooting the film, the crew witnessed the death of an antidrug activist who was shot dead by drug lords and the serious wounding of another fifty people by an attack from opium farmers." (Abstract)

Thesis of Cardinal Foley Scholarship Fund (CFSF) beneficiary