PBS Announces WIDE ANGLE "Crossing Heaven's Border" - Premieres This Evening July 1, 2009

In the past decade, up to 100,000 defectors have crossed the waters of the Tumen and Yalu Rivers into northeast China to escape the repressive regime of North Korea, the world's last closed Communist state.

In "Crossing Heaven's Border," WIDE ANGLE tells the moving and dramatic stories of a few of them. In China, the defectors' fate is grim. They must live in hiding, working illegally and with no access to education or medical care. If caught by Chinese authorities, they are repatriated to North Korea, where they face severe punishment: persecution, torture, even execution in prison camps. Only a lucky few reach their ultimate goal: asylum in South Korea. "Crossing Heaven's Border" reveals the plight of North Korean defectors from the point of view of intrepid South Korean journalists who risked their lives filming undercover for 10 months to capture the haunting stories firsthand.

The reporters introduce viewers to a mother working in China as a tour guide to support her six-year-old son who is sick with cerebral palsy and in dire need of medical attention. And WIDE ANGLE follows the grueling 10-day journey of a teenage girl and a little boy smuggled overland across China and Laos into Thailand, which accepts North Korean defectors as asylum seekers. Anchor Aaron Brown will conduct a post-film interview that further explores the issues raised in the film.

WIDE ANGLE "Crossing Heaven's Border" Premieres Tonight (07/01/2009) at 10:00 EST on PBS.