S16.E28 ∙ Episode #16.28

This documentary is part of a series that describes wars, battles, and revolutions that were turning points in Western history.

Shot illegally and often covertly in Burma and Thailand over 2 years, Burma In Pieces is a poetic sound and visual metaphor of life under a military dictatorship, pieced together from 150 hours of original material, interviews and archive footage. Filmed on bustling city streets and in remote mountain villages, in trains and markets, guerrilla resistance compounds in the landmine infested Burmese jungle, refugee camps on the Thai border, Buddhist temples, schools and kick boxing tournaments, the film offers intimate and unique observations of life in Burma under the shadow of the military dictatorship that controls it. For decades, the horrific human rights violations and political oppression in Burma has gone untold and unnoticed by the world, and while this situation has changed in recent years, Burma is still a closed society and its people remain distant statistics in a world desensitized by the horrors of conflict. Burma In Pieces therefore attempts to offer a detailed, nuanced human perspective of the nature of fear and oppression by bringing the audience into the lives, homes and environments of the Burmese people, thus experiencing their warmth, struggle and sacrifice.

March 2007 During 12 days that the whole world is busy with the freedom of the 15 Britsh soldiers who were captured by Iran, undergo an old couple who their only daughter has left Iran for England a dramatic episode of their life ,helpless not be able to find her trough telephone, mother goes to a pilgrimage hoping to hear from her. They finally reach her at Iranian new year. At 12th day the Iranian president announce the freedom of British soldiers. At the same day the couple find out that their daughter is not coming back.

What our institutional education makes us view as fanaticism is perhaps faith to some. When we are in distress we go to the psychiatrist. They go to shrines of fakirs and holy men instead.

During the Second World War, tens of thousands of working class men were sent to India and Burma, to fight against a formidable Japanese army, in often horrendous conditions. We learn of the campaign from one of the last surviving group of men. We follow youngsters Ben and Pamela on their journey to connect with the men who fought alongside their own grandfathers in the torrid Burma war.

A tender story of relationship cemented by war, and the power of love letters for a widow in her senior years.