The media landscape of the 21st century is largely shaped by the rise of online platforms, which serve as the primary intersection between capitalism and public discourse. Platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, and Google, are specialized websites that provide a full range of user experience to their visitors, allowing them to do all kinds of things such as communicate with other users and corporate entities, create content within the platform, and receive information about advertisement as they use the sites. During the pandemic, it remains a powerful consolidator and curator of public discourse.
This essay explores an exception to the rule, in particular, how online video platforms like Cinemata defy conventions and how they instead contribute to liberatory memory work. Unlike commercialized platforms such as YouTube, Cinemata stands out as a curated space for social issue films focused on the Asia-Pacific. As noted on their website, Cinemata aims to “spotlight critical yet often overlooked narratives” that address urgent regional issues, including climate change, conflict, freedom of speech, gender and sexuality, food security, and more. By exploring Cinemata’s curated playlist “Democracy Derailed: Curated Videos on Myanmar,” one can examine how such films can contribute to liberatory memory work, in making sense of Myanmar’s past-present political condition.
Cinemata as an Open-Source Video Platform
Like all video platforms, Cinemata functions fundamentally as a database. It operates using an open-source content management system (CMS) called MediaCMS, whose code is publicly accessible on GitHub. As a Python-based, web-interfaced platform, MediaCMS allows communities and organizations to efficiently manage and present their media content online, requiring only a robust backend media server to store the content.
Cinemata is not alone in leveraging this open-source CMS. Critical Commons, another advocacy-driven media organization, also uses MediaCMS. Critical Commons describes itself as “a public media archive and fair use advocacy network” that promotes the transformative reuse of media for scholarly and creative purposes, aligning closely with Cinemata’s mission.
Cinemata is a collaborative project nurtured by like-minded individuals and organizations. It was launched during the pandemic by EngageMedia, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting digital rights, open and secure technology, and social issue documentaries. A defining feature of the online video platform is its emphasis on curation and programming, led by EngageMedia’s primary curator, Jen Tarnate. The platform also invites curators and programmers across Asia and the Pacific to contribute to the management of its content.
This openness has made Cinemata a vital space for progressive and socially-aware audiovisual works. For example, some works of AsiaVisions, a Filipino progressive media group active during the Martial Law era in the Philippines, are hosted on the platform. This curatorial approach plays a significant role in Cinemata’s contribution to liberatory memory work.
Cinemata and the Curatorial Impulse of Memory Work
To clarify, the Cinemata playlists are not designed to serve as an archive, nor should they be confused with one. Video platforms are sometimes mistakenly perceived as audiovisual archives, but in the case of Cinemata, the platform is focused more on user engagement and media accessibility than on digital preservation (the survival and data permanence of their digital content for the next 50 to 100 years). However, it can still host archival public programs, such as the curated playlist Legacy of Struggle: Cinematic Perspectives on Martial Law, curated by AV archivist enthusiast Rosemarie Roque.
Hence, to enable memory work in video platforms like Cinemata, some archival practices can influence video platform work like media content curation. Media content curation is a process of creating an algorithm- or organization-led database, which video platforms deploy to create meaningful groupings of content in their platform. For example, in Spotify, playlists are created based on your ‘musical taste’ or the data you suply to the platform over time. By “meaningful,” we refer to content that encourages user interaction and improves user experience—on many platforms, algorithms and artificial intelligence drive curation, determining what appears on landing pages or in search results based on user behavior. This is especially common on platforms where user interaction translates into ad revenue and viewership.
In contrast, Cinemata’s content curation is not driven by algorithms or AI but is shaped by the organization and its users. Unlike machine-led curation, which can be opaque, organization-led curation is guided by a publicly available editorial policy that prioritizes quality, context, and relevance.
In today’s digital media economy, machine-learning processes have often overtaken human decision-making. Cinemata stands as a counterpoint, reconnecting media content curation with ethical and social responsibility. By restoring the power of editorial decision-making, the platform enables institutions and curators to work purposefully toward missions that recognize the power of media to influence society. In my opinion, this shift back to organization-led media curation greatly enhances the memory work that Cinemata can accomplish as a video platform.
Democracy Derailed: Remember Myanmar’s Civil Society Voices
Cinemata’s “Democracy Derailed: Curated Videos on Myanmar” is an EngageMedia-curated playlist. It brings together eleven media content that document the democratic aspirations of Myanmar and its people. It is also one of the earliest curated media contents of Cinemata.
Each audiovisual work in Cinemata has provenance notes. They indicate the creator of the videos as well as information about their copyright status. In Democracy Derailed, we recognize that the videos are produced by civil society organizations operating in or providing aid to Myanmar, including The Irrawaddy (a news organization), Asia Justice and Rights (a non-profit organization), Democratic Voice of Burma (one of Myanmar’s largest independent news organization), Turning Tables (a worldwide organization that empowers marginalized youth, through music and film), and EngageMedia itself.
The information on the creators can help us contextualize the nature of the content. And since these are civil society organization-produced materials, these videos cannot be found in popular film databases like Letterboxd. They are not traditional art films, indie films, or commercial film projects but rather a powerful expression of civil society’s effort to make sense of democracy in the wake of Myanmar’s political crisis.
Unity for democracy emerges as a crucial theme throughout, as these works seek to articulate a deeper look into the historical and political struggle of the people in Myanmar. In such a curated playlist, each film has its way of reconnecting with the country’s collective memory. Yerry Nikolas Borang’s Striving for Democracy: Burma’s Road to Freedom (2009) captures the country’s turbulent journey in history, focusing on pivotal events such as the 2008 monk-led protests, the environmental and societal turmoil brought by Cyclone Nargis in 2008, and the rise of the Saffron Revolution. The film intertwines these events with the exodus of Rohingya Muslims, portraying the deep suffering and resilience of the Burmese people in the face of the oppressive military regime. Films like Striving for Democracy depict the memory of a nation strewn in a more complex web of disenfranchisement. In the film, we see that while protest figures seek Indonesia’s hospitality, there is much needed work in terms of truly bringing change to the local politics of Myanmar.
In Burma Spring 21 (2021), the film performs memory work by documenting the immediate aftermath of the 2021 military coup, drawing parallels with past democratic movements, such as the Philippines’ People Power in 1986. By focusing on the youth-led protests symbolized by the three-finger salute and peaceful gestures like offering roses to soldiers, the film evokes historical symbols of resistance while embedding them into the current struggle for democracy. In this way, the film creates continuity between past and present, memorializing the courage of a new generation of activists while recalling the legacy of those who fought before them. The collective anonymity of the filmmakers tells us about the dangers of documenting resistance under Burma’s military rule, as preserving memories of dissent becomes a subversive and essential act of political memory-making.
In another film titled Are You Ready (2019), directed by Joosk, memory work is approached through a focus on digital censorship in Myanmar as stipulated in Article 66(D) of the Telecommunications Law. The film traces how restrictive laws have silenced critical voices in Myanmar, using infographics and animation to document the ongoing struggle for freedom of expression. By documenting the experiences of individuals targeted by the state, Are You Ready serves as a digital record of resistance, advocating for the abolition of repressive policies. Similarly, Digital Rights in Myanmar (2018), directed by Thet Oo Maung, serves as a reminder of the ongoing battle for digital rights, preserving the voices of activists who continue to navigate an increasingly restrictive environment.
Similarly, another audiovisual work What Will 2020 Mean for Myanmar Democracy? (2020) is a news interview that documents a conversation between known Myanmar political personalities (Writer U Kyaw Win and Lower House lawmaker Ma Zin Mar Aung of the NLD) about the fragile state of Myanmar’s democratization. By examining Myanmar’s efforts to reconcile ethnic conflicts within its security policy, the film underscores the necessity of addressing long-standing issues that hinder the peace process. In doing so, it memorializes the political disconnect threatening the country’s democratic transition, ensuring that these unresolved tensions are not forgotten.
In another film titled It’s Time to Talk (2019), Kyal Yi Lin Six captures the voices of marginalized groups, particularly women and transwomen, who face online harassment and gender-based violence. By highlighting their stories, the film does memory work by documenting the intersection of democracy, digital rights, and marginalized identities, ensuring that these experiences are not erased from the broader narrative of Myanmar’s struggle for democratization. Similarly, Speaking Truth for Peace (2019) documents women and their firsthand experiences of human rights violations and their fight for peace. This is perhaps the strongest among the audiovisual works featured in this playlist, creating an enduring record of their efforts as women community leaders, ensuring that their role in Myanmar’s future is remembered.
The playlist also features two music videos, one is Wake Up Myanmar (2015), produced by the UNDP’s Turning Tables, which captures the role of youth participation in Myanmar’s democratic aspirations. It uses the medium of music as a form of cultural memory-making, highlighting the collective belief that democracy can bring liberty and freedom, which is primordial in the youth movement of the country. Another music video titled Freedom from Fear (2015), a song by The Salt, acts as a form of musical memory, capturing the hopes and dreams of a generation yearning for Myanmar’s “second freedom.” The song documents the collective desire of the Burmese youth for unity and freedom, not only from British colonial rule but from political oppression, creating an enduring cultural artifact that resonates with the broader struggle for democracy among Southeast Asian nations.
Other films like The Good Daughter (2015) focus on the personal and everyday struggles of rural women, documenting their resilience as both breadwinners and caretakers. This film highlights the gendered dimensions of Myanmar’s ongoing struggles, ensuring that the voices of women, often marginalized in political discourse, are preserved. Myanmar’s Migrant Children Left Out (2015) documents the continuing migration crisis, preserving the stories of Burmese families seeking refuge in Thailand, creating a historical record of the social consequences of Myanmar’s political and economic instability.
Video Platforms Against Algorithms of Capitalism
Cinemata‘s curated playlists of media content from the Asia-Pacific region offer a fresh perspective on the potential for human-centered governance in a digitally dominated market economy. EngageMedia has demonstrated that people and organizations are not powerless in the face of tech giants like Meta, Google, and TikTok, whose algorithms shape the dominant discourse in contemporary society. By returning to editorial-based media curation, we can make liberatory memory work possible and aid in societal change. In Democracy Derailed, Cinemata users engage in collective memorialization, with each film and audiovisual work enriching a growing historical and cultural archival imagination about Myanmar’s struggle for democracy.
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This essay was completed under the ArtsEquator Fellowship.
