North Korea propaganda film backfires

Nine News

ninemsnJune 22, 2016

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© Reuters The filmmakers also captured a group of North Koreans appearing to push a bus along a road and children shivering in classrooms.A documentary on the life of a North Korean girl and her family has unintentionally exposed the secret inner workings of the country after outtakes of the film was smuggled out.

‘Under the Sun’ was supposed to be a propaganda film about a young girl happily growing up in the Kim Jong-un’s childrens’ union.

In snippets of the documentary, the girl, Ri Zin Mi, can be seen practising for festivals in tribute to former leader Kim Jong-il as well as at school, home and her parents’ work.

However, as the film crew and its Russian director, Vitaly Mansky, quickly discovered what they were being asked to film was all an illusion -the young girl became part of the North Korean system in front of their eyes.

“It was completely fake,” the film’s producer Simone Baumann told CNN.

“They would come to the scene, and would tell the people what they had to do, where they have to sit, how they have to sit, how they have to smile, they would tell them what they have to say.”

In the vision, the young girl can be seen being tucked up into bed by a group of her minders, while in other scenes thousands of flowers put on a stadium stage to mark festivities were soon after collected and put into bins.

The filmmakers also captured a group of North Koreans appearing to push a bus along a road and children shivering in classrooms.

While the North Korean authorities ultimately scrapped the original project after viewing the outtakes, a camerawoman copied everything filmed and kept it on two memory cards.

“The camerawoman is very brave. She put (the memory card) in her trousers when she went to the toilet. They gave one of them (the cards) to the North Koreans, and the second one they took with them,” Ms Baumann said.

After leaving North Korea the filmmakers decided to use the footage to create their own behind-the-scenes project. ‘Under the Sun’ debuts at US and European film festivals this month.