Songs From The North

Story

“Is North Korea the loneliest place in the world? A country with no friends and no history. With just the same myths from sunrise to sunset?” These are the questions Yoo Soon-mi asks herself and tries to get closer to the origins of the state mythology. In a compilation consisting of interviews with her father, who experienced the civil war and the subsequent division of the country, footage of everyday life in the North Korean capital Pyongyang and a horde of propaganda material, a picture emerges of a country in limbo between staged glory and everyday desolation.

Director

Yoo Soon-mi (*1972) Born in 198, she studied German before moving to the US to study photography at the Massachusetts College of Arts and subsequently take up a teaching post at the film and video faculty. She realized many short documentary film essays, before her full-length documentary debut Songs From the North won the prize for best debut film at the 2014 Locarno festival.

Trailer