Moving to Mars: A Million Miles from Burma

The latest documentary by Mat Whitecross, who directed the award-winning The Road to Guantanamo, takes us to a refugee camp on the Burma-Thai border, where up to 40,000 Karen Burmese have fled persecution from the military junta in Burma. The family of the civil engineer Thaw Htoo, whose house was burned down by Burmese soldiers, has been living here for 15 years Thanks to the work of humanitarian organisations, the families of Thaw Htoo and farmer Jo Kae have been given a new home in the British city of Sheffield. Although the parents are nervous, for the children, moving from a camp in the jungle to the heart of industrial England seems like an amazing adventure. Gradually, however, it becomes apparent that finding work and friends in a strange land, overcoming the language barrier and getting by in school is a difficult challenge for all the family. Using frequently cheerful portraits of individual members of both families, this deeply human, cinema vérité style film faithfully reveals the experience of people striving to adapt to a completely new environment.