Two illegal Burmese migrants fleeing their country’s civil war find love with each other while struggling to survive in the bustling cities of Thailand.

Бизнесмен Ван Синь Хун страдает бессонницей. Гадалка советует молодому человеку, чей автомобиль и выпуклый кошелек говорят о том, что дела у него идут неплохо: провести 14 дней в буддистском монастыре, жить как монах и есть по одному яблоку в день. Сделать это в наши дни возможно в Бирме. Ван Синь Хун следует совету, прибывает в сельский монастырь, бреется наголо и надевает красную одежду, в которой немедленно становится авторитетом.

A fascinating documentary, shot in the mountainous north of Burma. No filmmaker is welcome there, because, against the background of a civil war, the jade miners enter the deserted mines illegally. With the aid of filming locals, however, Midi Z was able to compile this portrait. Getting rich quick turns out to be hard and risky work Jade has always been a valuable commodity in Asia. In the mountains in the north of Burma there are valuable deposits of jade. The area forms part of Kachin State, inhabited by many ethnic groups which found themselves embroiled in the Civil War in 2010 with the Burmese government. Jade mining was halted because of the conflict. Thousands of workers, however, went to the war zone in order to dig for illegal jade. It turned the region into a no-go area and the filmmaker Midi Z, who had so far made feature films in Burma, saw no opportunity to go and film there. It was far too dangerous. © iffr.com