Field report · Burma · 2025
Burma
In 2025, Peacemaker Coalition sent a team of military veterans into Burma to get eyes on
the ground and document the conflict firsthand. Our team gathered interviews and firsthand
accounts directly from people living through it. This film is a small window into what the
Burmese people face and their urgent need for humanitarian aid and support.
Burma's military, the Tatmadaw, seized power in a 1962 coup. It tightened its grip after a
second coup on February 1, 2021, and now rules through a body it calls the State
Administration Council. Human rights organizations and the United Nations have documented mass
killings, torture, and arbitrary detention under this rule. The junta has attacked schools and
hospitals, targeted ethnic groups including the Rohingya in violence international bodies have
said may amount to genocide, suppressed the press, and driven widespread displacement and
humanitarian suffering.
Field interview · Cameroon · 2024
Joseph's Escape from Civil War
Joseph had a normal life. A big family in one house, three generations of them. College,
then work as an environmental scientist. Then the war reached his street. “You will walk
down the street,” he says, “and you will see so many dead bodies.” Houses
burned on both sides of the road, some of them with the people still inside. Children were
killed at school, so the schools closed. Food stopped coming.
His father was a marked man. One night Joseph heard a noise at the gate and knew what it
was. They had come for his dad. “They had guns and knives, and we couldn't fight them.
One of them told me to stretch out my hands, and if I don't tell them where my dad is, they're
going to cut off my hands.”
He did not tell them. His family lived. His father walked back through the door two hours
later. Getting out took fifteen countries. Seven of those days he spent in jungle with no
food, no water, and no one to ask for help. He is in America now, studying nights toward the
certifications that will let him work as the scientist he already is. His parents are still in
hiding. The war has not stopped.
How this film was made. Joseph asked us not to show his
face. His parents are still hiding inside the country and the war has not ended, so anything
that identifies him reaches them. Rather than drop the story, we illustrated it. Every image
you see was created for that purpose. Nothing you hear was. His words are his own, recorded on
camera, unaltered.
Narrative feature · In association with Peacemaker Coalition
Double Edged
We were fortunate that a writer and director as talented as Tony Rakshith wanted to
take on something this hard. What post-traumatic stress actually does to people who served
is not an easy subject to sit with for the length of a production, and he did not flinch
from it.
We did not produce this film. Tony wrote and directed it, and it is his.
We lent a hand where we could. Insight during pre-production. During the shoot,
equipment, the location, and in-house training for a few of the crew and cast. Veterans
from Peacemaker Coalition gave their advisement throughout, because in a story like this
the details are the difference between something that rings true to the people who lived
it and something that does not.
Tony joined Peacemaker Coalition later, in post.
We are proud of what he made. This is one of many narratives we want to help reach
people. About veterans, about the civilians who live through the same conflicts and are
rarely asked what it cost them, and about anyone carrying something the rest of us do
not see.
Overview · The Peacemakers
The Peacemakers
We teach the craft directly. Camera, lighting, sound, screenwriting, story development, and photographic
fundamentals, taught in structured sessions, one to one and in small groups, then applied on
real productions alongside experienced crew. We are expanding the written course material and
building an instructional video series. Everything we produce is shared freely with the
public to educate and build understanding.
