Dir. Paco Beltrán and Jessica Leung, 2020, 86 min.

Ten years in the making, filmmakers Paco Beltrán and Jessica Leung share the story of Mu, a young Kayan refugee forced to leave her home of Myanmar (formerly Burma) as a child. Mu lives a confined life with her mother and other women who wear traditional brass neck coils in Thailand, where she is viewed as a spectacle for tourists. Determined to pursue freedom for herself and her baby, Mu makes the decision to leave her home—her mother, her culture and her tribe—after an opportunity in a UN resettlement plan offers her the chance for a new life in the USA. But unexpected and challenging conditions for refugees emerge as Mu makes sense of her place as a single mother in a new and complicated world.

Followed by remarks by Naw Doh, Burmese-American activist, and Mariangela Mihai, Postdoctoral Fellow, Culture & Politics Program, Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Presented by Penn Museum and cosponsored by Philadelphia Folklore Project, and Penn's Asian American Studies Program; Cinema and Media Studies; and Wolf Humanities Center.