Virtual Borders

The story follows village headman Abaw Buseu on his journey from Thailand to a gathering of the Akha-Hani people in China. He is accompanied by an Akha radio presenter and the film team. Using the Internet, they transmit discussions from the gathering back to a radio station in Thailand for broadcast to remote mountain villages.

Three million Akha and Hani people live across the borderlands of five nations: China, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Thailand, and Burma (Myanmar). They identify as one people (Hani-Akha) through a common ‘tribal’ history, rather than the modern world history that created the nation states they live in. Theirs is an oral culture; traditional knowledge is passed on through the generations by recitation from memory.

Innovative in format, this hybrid Internet – radio – documentary film project is also the first feature documentary produced in Akha language.