Meet Cookie, Sugar and Mondine! They are in a camp. But no, this is not a youth summer camp. They are part of the resistance. In fact, they are part of a group of Gen Z volunteers in the jungles of Myanmar who try to endure 45 days of makeshift training in a top-secret camp before they go to the front line and face the military junta. Between drills, the young men, until recently students, teachers and tour guides, call home – or sing along to pop songs.
Now, you can follow their transformation from civilians into soldiers in White Tiger Column, a new documentary that gets its world premiere in the International Competition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), which runs through Nov. 22, to open the festival on Friday. The young men’s fight is for democracy. But its end is not in sight.
The doc from Canadian filmmakers Robert Mentov, Dwight Jantzi and Bryan Dickie, their debut feature, asks how far people are willing to go when their freedoms are threatened. Lightwood Green is handling world sales on the film.
The filmmaking trio collaborated on the 2025 hybrid short film Paradise Heights, featuring members of Toronto’s Burmese diaspora. They were subsequently invited to a secret training camp to observe a People’s Defense Force regiment.
“After the coup in 2021, I was having lunch with people from the diaspora and was asked to go to the region to document the story,” Dickie recalls. “Everybody, myself included, felt it wasn’t getting the exposure it needed. Prior to production, which started in January 2024, I did an extended research trip to the region to build connections and further understand the political context. From there, the road was paved for us to come as a full team and embed with the White Tiger Column.”
Adds Mentov: “Bryan and I had been talking for, probably, seven years about doing a trip out to Burma. After the coup, we knew that this was the time we had to do it. Bryan pitched it to us after his first research trip, and that’s how we ended up there together.”
And Jantzi highlights: “Geopolitically, Myanmar doesn’t have a lot of relevance to Europe and the West; it’s sandwiched between India and China, and there are other global powers in the area that demand a lot more attention. I think that plays a large role in how little understanding and coverage there is of the issues there. Not to mention it’s very politically nuanced. There are over 135 ethnicities in the country – many of those have their own ethnic militia as well, and there are constant skirmishes.”
The filmmakers’ goal was to tell the story of the People’s Defense Force. “We really feel that it’s a pure revolution, because, despite all the ethnicities around the country, this is the moment where they’re all joining under one banner to fight against the military, which is a very unique and special time in the country,” says Jantzi.
You have seen a couple of stills from White Tiger Column here. Now, THR can premiere an exclusive first- look teaser for the film. Watch Gen Z in the jungles of Myanmar prepare for revolution right here – and remember your code number.
