British PM's wife hosts film screening for Myanmar's Suu Kyi

British PM's wife hosts film screening for Myanmar's Suu Kyi
Thu Jun 18, 5:05 pm ET

LONDON (AFP) – British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's wife hosted a private screening of a new film on Myanmar Thursday, on the eve of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's 64th birthday, officials said.

Sarah Brown hosted the first-ever film screening at the prime minister's Downing Street offices to raise awareness for a campaign calling on Myanmar's military junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi before elections next year.

At least one minister and various charity bosses were to attend the showing of "Burma VJ", which a Foreign Office spokesman said "exposes the atrocities and injustices that have been taking place under the military regime."

It is comprised largely of footage filmed over a number of days by an undercover network of video journalists -- VJs -- using concealed cameras. It is due to be released nationwide on July 14.

Brown was in Brussels for a meeting of European Union leaders.

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent 13 of the last 19 years in detention since the junta refused to recognise her National League for Democracy's (NLD) landslide victory elections in 1990.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is set to spend her birthday on Friday at Yangon's notorious Insein prison, where she is being held on charges of having violated her house arrest after an American man swam to her lakeside house.

The Downing Street screening is in aid of the campaign '64 Words for Aung San Suu Kyi', in which world leaders including Brown and celebrities such as George Clooney and Julia Roberts sent her messages of support.