Film on the Karen Refugees opens the Asian Freedom Film Festival 2006

Don't Fence Me In: Major Mary and the Karen Refugees, a film about the struggle of the peoples of Burma will open the Asian Freedom Film Festival 2006 in Cebu City on December 10, 2006.

The thirty-minute documentary from Writer-Director Ruth Gumnit chronicles the life of freedom fighter Major Mary On and reveals the courage and determination of the Karen refugees living in the Thai-Burma border as they fight for their survival. In the film, Major Mary explains the plight of the Karen people living inside Burma: "The displaced persons, they can't come to Thailand. They want to be refugees because they got no food, nothing to eat. In the forest they have to eat only bamboo shoots, and roots and leaves and all. Even the Burmese tried to teach the Karen that when you open the Karen's belly you see only leaves."

According to the producer, more than 100,000 undocumented migrants are living in refugee camps along the border between Burma and Thailand. Some have been there for nearly twenty years while hundreds of thousands more hide in jungles on the Burma side. All have been forced from their homes by the Burmese military junta, called the State Peace and Development Council.

In 2005, faced with pressures from the international community the Burmese military junta was forced to forego its turn as chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN. The post was given to the Philippines who is hosting this year's ASEAN Leaders Summit in the Southern Philippine city of Cebu.

For the most part of its modern history, Burma has been ruled by the military when General Ne Win seized power in 1962 that toppled the democratic regime of U Thakin Nu. The present military junta has been at the helm since 1988.

William Gois, Regional Coordinator of Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) said that he hopes that the film will push the leaders of the ASEAN to discuss the issue of migration and the push factors that lead people out of their homelands. "Migration is a complex issue in the region. It is time that they put serious thoughts on how best to confront this issue. We hope that by bringing these films on migration experience in the ASEAN our leaders will finally realize the urgency of passing a regional instrument that will protect the rights of all migrants,"

Don't Fence Me In won the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the 2006 Washington DC Independent Film Festival. It also received the Director's Citation Award at the 2006 Black Maria Film Festival and a finalist at the USA Film Festival held in Dallas, Texas in 2004.

The film festival is organized by MFA and Pusat Komas, in cooperation with Freedom from Debt Coalition-Cebu. It supported by the South East Asian Committee for Advocacy (SEACA). This year’s theme of the film festival is Women and Migration in the ASEAN.