On his sleepless nights, Imran paces the floor grappling with ghosts from half a world away and many months past.

I'm wide awake and I call my friends' names. ‘Hey Zainal! Hey Faisal! Where are you?' But they're not here, they're on Manus – Imran, 24, Rohingya refugee who spent nearly five years on Manus Island

But come daylight, Imran can revel in his new home - Chicago, 14,000 kilometres from Manus. It's been more than seven years since, aged 16, he fled persecution in Myanmar. Along the way he was held hostage by people smugglers and detained in Indonesia before making his fateful journey to Christmas Island. Now, thanks to a refugee deal with the US, he has a job and is finishing school.

I'm free, that's all that matters to me. People have been welcoming and I am loved. So, it's home, it definitely feels like home – Imran

An old friend of Imran's from Manus is also making a new life. Amir was 14 when he left Iran. Now 25 and living in Vancouver on Canada's west coast, Amir has a job in tourism and is set to study law. His good fortune flows from a chance meeting with Chelsea Taylor, a Melbourne nurse who worked on Manus and talked her Canadian-Australian parents into sponsoring him.

You rescued me from an island which so many governments and so many countries were not able to do – Amir, to Chelsea's parents Wayne and Linda in Vancouver

Correspondent Eric Tlozek first met Amir and Imran on Manus Island more than 18 months ago. He follows them from behind the wire to their new lives in North America in the most intimate and detailed account so far of life for Manus refugees.

In Canada and the US, Tlozek meets Australian expats, like Wayne Taylor and fashion designer Fleur Wood, who are pitching in to help ex-detainees now that Australia is done with them.

When I heard about them being resettled in America I knew how little help they'd be getting - Fleur Wood, co-founder of Australian Diaspora Steps Up

Nearly 500 ex-Manus and Nauru detainees are scattered across the US, receiving only brief and basic support from the government. Wood's group hustles to find them housing, bedding and clothing.

When Wood searches for some Rohingyas who are just off Nauru, she ends up at a rundown building in North Chicago where four men share a tiny apartment, eking out casual work, dishwashing and cleaning. One is seriously ill.

After five years on Nauru, these men aren't coping with their newfound freedom in America. They still want to come to Australia. Bizarrely, some even want to go back to Nauru.

But for those who are faring better, life is what you make of it.

You can be in the worst place on this planet and make it a heaven for yourself. And you can be in the best country on this planet and make it a hell for yourself – Amir in Vancouver

If ever there was a project to build bridges between North Korea and the rest of us, this is it.

Every six months, without fanfare, medics and volunteers from the US, South Korea and other countries head to the North Korean countryside where they link up with local doctors and nurses to treat patients suffering from the deadly multi-drug resistant TB (MDRTB).

As an outsider you're sort of pulling two worlds together. When I stand in front of North Koreans, most of whom have never seen a non-Asian in their entire lives, I represent a sort of visual spectacle. I represent Americans who they've been taught all of their lives to believe are their enemy – Dr Stephen Linton, founder of the US-based Eugene Bell Foundation

MDRTB strikes close to 500,000 people worldwide each year, many of them in North Korea.

It's a very painful way to die. But the cruellest thing about TB is that it's infectious. You don't just die – you actually kill the people you love – Dr K. J. Seung, Eugene Bell Foundation

Over time the volunteers become emotionally attached to the patients, unashamedly so. On one of her first trips Hyuna Linton met a 14-year-old girl with MDRTB. Six months later, Hyuna returned with medicine and hope. It was too late.

My heart broke then. She was the first patient who died that I can remember – Hyuna Linton, Eugene Bell Foundation

North Korean doctor Im Soonhee dreads facing the family of any patient who's died.

I feel sorry and guilty. I feel we didn't try hard enough or care for them enough – Dr Im, North Korea

Deep emotional bonds also form between the foreigners and their North Korean hosts.

I remember Dr Im touching my cheek and saying, ‘Don't get sick.' I realised how much she worries about us. That kind of warmth is special – Hyuna Linton, volunteer, Eugene Bell Foundation

Their cultural differences put aside, the teams share not only grief but also moments of joy. Such as when a teenage girl recovering from the disease announces her life's new goal:

I want to study medicine. I want to cure people who are sick like me – Youngshim, patient

Defying a common perception of North Koreans as automatons, this film presents them as real people who laugh and cry and love. It's also a rare insight into a part of the world that's been mostly hidden from western eyes.

Out of Breath – from filmmaker Hein S. Seok.