‘Self-reliance’ stars at North Korean film fest
Biennial festival featured movies from Germany, France and India
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA— Sprawling 900,000 square metres across a hilly expanse on the outskirts of this capital city, the Pyongyang Film Studio, said to be the world’s largest, features a variety of representations of foreign locales, reflecting North Korea’s propagandized vision of the outside world.
There are sets meant to depict Japan, a generic European streetscape and South Korea circa 1950. The street standing in for South Korea, the North’s longtime rival and more-prosperous neighbour, includes a seedy brothel, a tawdry bar and a shady blood bank — all seemingly designed to cast it as a paradigm of decrepitude and sin.
On a recent sunny afternoon, however, the studio was eerily empty. The post-production facilities appeared unstaffed and the interior sets, veiled in cobwebs and dust, looked in disrepair.
Asked about the evident decay, a guide insisted that the sets were constantly in use.
“There was a crew shooting here yesterday and they will be shooting again tomorrow,” he said. “They are just taking a break today.”
We were in town for one of the few chances that outsiders have to go behind the baffling facade of North Korea — the biennial Pyongyang International Film Festival. And like the studio tour, this year’s festival, the 15th, offered a vivid disconnect from the underlying poverty of a nation unable to feed its citizens and reeling from tough United Nations sanctions prompted by its nuclear weapons program.
The opening ceremony did not lack grandiosity. Staged in mid-September at the capital’s Central Youth Hall, glimmering for the occasion, it was attended by government functionaries, festival delegates and representatives from various embassies.
Cars belonging to officials and buses carrying performing arts groups clogged the expansive parking lot, as smartly dressed women filed into the packed theatre, the clicking of their heels reverberating off the walls of the high-ceilinged lobby.
There was no mention of the UN sanctions or recent devastating floods.
The evening also introduced the five-member jury — all male — headed by Yuri Mityushin, a Russian citizen, formerly employed by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, who currently runs a “law enforcement” film festival in Moscow. In previous years, the festival has had jurors from Iran, Syria and China.
The opening ceremony concluded with the hosts, standing beneath a sculpted dove, announcing that the festival would showcase films from countries opposed to war and “aspiring to a beautiful and peaceful life.”
The festival rarely features Oscar hopefuls or Hollywood stars. If a film is screening, it is probably promoting socialist values or patriotic sentiment. Guests then sat for the opening film, A Quiet Outpost, a jingoistic Russian war drama that was a paean to the military and ended with a gory 30-minute battle sequence.
During the eight-day program, 11 feature films vied for the Best Torch Award and the jury was instructed to judge the films based on how well they symbolized the festival’s official theme — “Independence, Peace and Friendship” — and whether they articulated the ideology of juche, or self-reliance, developed by the country’s founding father, Kim Il Sung.
The complete lineup was noticeably slimmer than in years past, with 60 films from 21countries compared with more than 100 films at previous festivals. Germany, France and India were represented but, as in the past, films from the United States and South Korea were conspicuously absent.
The sole North Korean title in the feature competition, The Story of Our Home, was a drama apparently based on true events about a young college graduate who selflessly devotes herself to raising orphans and who wins accolades from the North’s leader, Kim Jong Un. Other entries from the North included an animated short and a slice-of-life documentary, Prosperous Pyongyang.
For many international delegates, the primary attraction of the festival is the experience of watching films alongside North Koreans, despite an awareness that they are interacting with only a privileged section of Pyongyang society.
Sitting in an auditorium with 2,000 people also often leads to more casual encounters than is otherwise possible in North Korea, where itineraries are tightly controlled and conversations with ordinary people are rare. The potential of initiating such dialogue in a society reeling from isolationism is also reason enough for many artists to want their work screened in the country.
This year, after a full evening showing of Baahubali: The Beginning, an Indian fantasy epic in the vein of The Lord of the Rings, concluded with a cliffhanger, many North Koreans in the audience gasped and then lingered before leaving the auditorium.
“Is this a true story?” one incredulous North Korean asked me.
“Please ask the filmmakers to submit the second part for the next festival,” said another, after learning that I was an Indian citizen. (The next festival is scheduled for 2018.)
The crowd at the conclusion of the festival expressed little surprise, by contrast, when the Best Torch Award went to the national entry, The Story of Our Home, and its star, Paek Sol Mi, was named best actress for what was her screen debut. Reporting for this article was facilitated through the support of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.