They don’t call North Korea The Hermit Kingdom for nothing. Sometimes getting into the country seems almost as difficult as getting out.
That’s what Montreal filmmaker Jason Lee and his father found out when they tried to visit.
Letters had stopped coming from Young Chol, Jason’s uncle, and his father’s eldest brother, but it took years of inquiries and negotiations before they could enter the country in search of Young Chol, who had not seen his relatives since 1947.
The Lee family’s photo album.
Before heading to North Korea, we learn about the Lee family’s history, and how Young Chol and his wife ended up on the other side of the border. Many thousands of Korean families were broken in a similar way and remain separated to this day.
Once Jason Lee and his father got to North Korea, they were not allowed to visit their relatives in their home, for reasons that were not explained. We can only imagine what those reasons might be.
There’s not a lot of traffic in North Korea.
Soldiers from North Korea, South Korea and the U.S. stare at each other at close range, every day, at the Demilitarized Zone.
The Pyongyang subway.
Letters from Pyongyang will be shown twice at RIDM.
On Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012, at 5:45, it will be accompanied by Une délégation de très haute niveau, , which follows some Belgian members of parliament on a visit to North Korea. I haven’t seen this film, but it’s been descibed as both frightening and hilarious. That screening is in Salle Fellini, at Excentris, 3536 St. Laurent Blvd.
On Thursday, Nov. 15, at 2 p.m., it will be accompanied by The Girl From The South, in which an Argentine filmmaker revisits the South Korean peace activist he first met 20 years earlier. That screening is also in Salle Fellini, at Excentris, 3536 St. Laurent Blvd.
Further reading: Letters from Pyongyang on Facebook, Letters from Pyongyang web site.
