User Reviews

I watched the first half of this documentary with a sense of trepidation. We are introduced to a number of Karen people from Burma, living in exile in Thailand, as they prepare to undertake a second exile, and migrate to England. You watch in apprehension because, although their life in a Thai refugee camp is hard, there's a sense of community and they know the environment; and their relocation to England is driven by bureaucratic necessity (the Thais want to close the camp) rather than by personal ambition. And I feared that they would arrive in England, be dumped in a crumbling tower block with no support, and a new, more miserable phase of their lives would begin. In fact, the English don't do badly - the refugees get nice houses and plenty of support, and there's already a Karen community in Sheffield. Not everything is easy - there are no obvious jobs for them to do, and families thrown together don't always get on - but the film ends with the sense that their (naturally more adaptable) kids are alright, and that if their parents have had an enormous sacrifice forced upon them by the Burmese junta, their children might at least enjoy a better life.