Burma: A Forgotten War

This award-winning film and oral histories project documents the startling resilience of Burma’s ethnic minorities who have lived under the rule of a corrupt junta in a state of civil war for more than 50 years. It exposes the impact of landmines and the government’s use of forced labor, torture, rape and drugs on the various ethnic minorities that continue to survive in the uncharted jungles and heavily land-mined area of southeast Burma. With funding support from the Peace and Human Security Center in New York, and connections to various ethnic minority organizations on the ground at the Thai border, I was able to enter Burma illegally to travel to makeshift IDP camps to interview aging ethnic leaders and displaced peoples hiding from the army to avoid persecution. Additionally, I recorded the stories of Karen refugees and community leaders who are indefinitely detained in the Mae La Refugee Camp on the Thai/Burma border. At the culmination of this project, the work was presented to United States Congress, screened at numerous film festivals internationally, and received theatrical distribution throughout the US.