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The world's last old-style communist country is a secluded terra incognita - cut off, politically isolated and dramatically impoverished. Pyongyang brings about a Cold War atmosphere. The drill of militias, socialist high rises and soviet-style palaces. Giant murals and slogans praise party, leader and ideology. Parade grounds, huge martial memorials and statues of Kim Il Sung resound with the 24 hours playback of heroic military choirs. North Korea is in the headlines, yet pictures are rare, for the government mistrusts foreign journalists.
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Author: Bernd Girrbach Versions: 43.30 min. German, 52.00 min. English
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The BSE crisis in Europe made this film possible. During BSE, consumers avoided eating even sound, certified beef. Huge amounts of beef had to be taken off the market and were to be destroyed. Instead, the German government donated the beef to North Korea. The meat of 130,000 cattle was distributed to six million needy North Koreans. Eight inspectors who – as a precondition of the beef aid – were allowed to move freely in the country supervised the distribution. Surprisingly, our camera was allowed to join! |
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Together with team leader Christoph Bürk we visited ports and warehouses, filmed in orphanages, school canteens and day nurseries. We travelled to impoverished province centres and to farming co-operatives in the country. The relief mission was a unique opportunity for a rare introspective into everyday life in North Korea.
As a rule “private contacts” between foreigners
and ordinary citizens are prohibited. We were the first television crew
allowed to visit and portray the people in their everyday lives. For example
Mrs. U, a pensioner whom we filmed in her Pyongyang flat in Chollima Street.
Or Major Kim Kun Son, 24, a female police officer, who will soon marry.
She is one of the 200 single beauties of the Pyongyang traffic brigade
that control traffic on intersections with a dash-ing ballet. With her
we go on a stroll through town, see where she lives and talk about fashion,
girls, men and her love of uniforms. 28’30 and 26 minutes, Digital Betacam 16:9 Stereo. * © 360 Grad – die GEO-Reportage, c/o medienkontor.de
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Charming
Mrs Ko and her family live in Taek Am, one of the country's 3,200 rural
production collectives. In Hamhung, the crisis-ridden centre of North
Korea’s chemical industry on the east coast, Mr Ri talks quite openly
about hunger and decline. Particularly by means of such small portraits
of ordinary citizens the film tries to gain an insight into daily life
in North Korea. Not all is depressing. The provincial town of Kaesong
in the south is famous for its old city centre - the only one not destroyed
in the Korean War - and it is renowned as the provenance of ginseng, which
a retired ginseng master, the talkative Mr. Ho, 62, tells us about. 
Of
course, we also go to the capital Pyongyang, the "Paradise of the
Working Masses". Ms Kang, a nice old lady sees to it that the Party's
decisions are under-stood correctly in her apartment block. With his Chongyon
Choir, Mr Jon, the conductor, rehearses the song "We Will Follow
You Forever" in preparation for a forthcoming day of national celebration.
We even drop in on a lesson held by Cha, teacher of English, who has become
busy lately, for English is now taught at all schools of higher education.
Amazingly small changes are taking place even in North Korea! Mr Ri feels
that every day. He is director of the Pyongyang shoe combine. He now has
to run his enterprise commercially and he wants to make “profit”
- a new word in the country. Finally we experience one of North Korea's
most important national holidays, the birthday of the Great Leader with
the Leader's Flower Exhibition and displays of mass dancing.
