Under the Sun (2015) on Netflix
NR20151h 46mDocumentary
A crew shoots in Pyongyang under the eye of North Korean officials who write the script and choose the scenes. Its subject is Zin-mi, a girl preparing for the Korean Children's Union.
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- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.4/105,479 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
Zin-mi, eight years old, lives in Pyongyang with her family, and a crew from abroad has been allowed in to record her year as she prepares for the Korean Children's Union. The contract gives the Ministry of Culture control: it writes the script, selects the characters and the locations, approves the cameras, and sends minders who supervise each scene. Only three crew members are admitted, they cannot move about alone, and they cannot speak with the family directly. Because the government wants a propaganda picture, the visitors leave their cameras running after the minders call cut, recording the staged scenes and the instructions given to the family.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Under the Sun (2015)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- North Korean authorities deleted footage they disliked at the end of each shooting day, so Vitaly Mansky's crew saved every take to two memory cards: one went to the censors, the other was hidden — the camerawoman carried it in her trousers to the toilet — and the complete footage was smuggled out of the country.
- A film festival curator at New York's Museum of Modern Art chose not to screen Under the Sun, fearing North Korean hackers might mount a cyber-attack like the one over The Interview (2014). MoMA later disavowed the decision and the curator was no longer employed there.
- North Korea allowed only director Vitaly Mansky, cinematographer Alexandra Ivanova and a sound assistant into the country. Unknown to the authorities, Mansky's "sound assistant" was a Russian translator fluent in Korean with no recording experience, hired as a spy to learn what the North Korean handlers planned.
- After learning that Mansky had smuggled unapproved footage out, North Korea lodged a complaint with the Russian Foreign Ministry, a production partner, seeking a ban on Under the Sun. Russia rejected the request despite objections from nationalist politicians who support North Korea, and the film screened at Russian festivals.
- After the film's release, Zin-mi's family condemned it, claiming it was made dishonestly and edited selectively to produce an "anti-North Korean movie", and that Mansky had staged their daughter's scenes.
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