THE ROAD TO MANDALAY

The Venice Days Best Film winner is a story of star-crossed love and human striving that gives a hauntingly real face to the Burmese refugee crisis.

In the back of a pickup truck transporting him across the Thai–Burma border, Guo falls in love with fellow emigrant Lianqing. Their destination is Bangkok, an illusory paradise of opportunity, so distant and different from their impoverished rural homes. But a city like Bangkok cares little for the people trying to survive there, and as frustrations mount and the authorities close in, both Guo and Lianqing will be forced into ever more impossible positions.

Tender and humane, The Road to Mandalay is the latest devastating survey of South-East Asia's most marginalised from directorial prodigy Midi Z. A deceptively simple character study that masks a deep, probing core, it's both wrenching and hopeful, a captivating exercise in common humanity that doubles as a clarion call for the plight of the world's powerless.

'One of the rising stars of Asian cinema … a moving human tragedy.' – Screen Daily