02.06.22
Events
Under The Sun (2016) / Country: Russia, North Korea / Director: Vitaly Mansky / Length: 106 min. / Language: Korean / Subtitles: English, Albanian / Entrance: FREE
Under The Sun is a 2015 Russian documentary film directed by Vitaly Mansky. The film follows a year in the life of a family in Pyongyang, North Korea as their daughter Zin-mi prepares to join the Korean Children's Union on the Day of the Shining Star.
North Korea permitted only Mansky, cinematographer Alexandra Ivanova, and a sound assistant to visit the country. North Korean authorities objected to the film's screening after discovering that the film crew had smuggled unapproved footage. Under the Sun received mostly positive reviews from critics.
At the end of each day's shoot, authorities would review the footage and delete scenes they deemed unacceptable. To get around this censorship and record unscripted moments, Mansky allowed digital cameras to roll throughout the shoot even after North Korean handlers yelled "cut".
The crew employed a recording system that recorded all footage on two separate memory cards. The crew submitted one of the memory cards to North Korean authorities for inspection and hid the other copy. According to producer Simone Baumann, "The camerawoman is very brave. She put [the memory card] in her trousers when she went to the toilet. They gave one of them to the North Koreans, and the second one they took with them." The film crew then smuggled the footage out of North Korea.
“Like Nazi and Soviet propaganda films, “Under the Sun” offers a vision of social perfection that comes at the expense of messy truth and human complexity. Although unintentionally funny throughout, its evocation of life in a totalitarian society is ultimately chilling. The happy picture the North Koreans struggle to present implies unfathomable depths of violence to the human spirit beneath its glossy surface.” - Godfrey Cheshire for Roger Ebert Reviews.
This film is screened as a collaboration between Kino ARMATA and DokuFest.