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“There are five family members trapped in the North Korean-Chinese border area. Please help us survive...” (Defector Woo family)
The documentary film “Beyond Utopia,” which depicts the journey of a North Korean defector family, will be screened in over 600 theaters across the United States in October. The film won the Audience Award by topping the audience vote in the documentary category at the Sundance Film Festival, often referred to as the “Academy Awards of independent cinema.” It also received the Audience Award at the Sydney Film Festival and has been selected as the opening night screening at the upcoming Telluride Film Festival in the U.S. Amid growing concerns on the forced repatriation of defectors after the opening of the North Korean-Chinese border, the film is expected to raise international awareness about defectors and shed light on the dire human rights situation in North Korea.
On the 28th (local time), the U.S. film and entertainment outlet Variety reported, “A special event is scheduled for October 23-24, during which the documentary film will be screened in over 600 theaters across the U.S.” It is quite unusual for a documentary film on North Korean human rights to be screened on such a large scale, and it has been announced that the decision for additional screenings will depend on the response following the two-day special event. A two-and-a-half-minute trailer was released on YouTube on the 29th. Even before its release, the film has been receiving positive reviews on the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes, with comments like “an essential film” and “an astonishing achievement.” Director Madeleine Gavin expressed her frustration with the focus solely on nuclear issues in the context of North Korea and the neglect of stories of ordinary citizens. She stated, “There is a need for these people’s stories to be told.”
The film features the story of the Woo family taking refuge in the North Korea-China border area after defecting, Lee, a mother desperate to smuggle her son out of North Korea, who she was forced to leave behind a decade ago, and Pastor Kim Sung-eun of Caleb Mission Church, who responded to their plea for help. Pastor Kim is known to have been involved in rescuing over 1,000 defectors for the past 20 years. The filming took place in 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, in key countries along the North Korea-China border and the escape routes, including Laos and Vietnam. Despite risks such as surveillance by Chinese authorities, the production team used mostly mobile phones to film and combined interviews with animation elements to create a 115-minute film.
One North Korean defector remarked, “The Kim regime told us we were living in a ‘utopia,’ but we were actually trapped in a massive virtual prison.” The film candidly exposes the human rights realities within North Korea, which are summarized as brainwashing and oppression. Woo’s two daughters describe Kim Jong-un as the “greatest person in the world.” There’s a scene where Woo’s mother, who initially insisted on staying in North Korea, expresses surprise at the kindness of Americans during the process of defection, saying, “The U.S. can be this kind?” Upon arriving at a safe house in Vietnam, the Woo family is amazed by features like functioning lights and running water, leading them to exclaim, “This is the haven on earth.” The film review site “The Playlist” noted, “Every scene is filled with information and rich emotions,” highlighting that the surprise is that the film is a documentary, not a thriller.
Individuals involved in the film’s production also have intriguing backgrounds. Lee Hyun-seo, who defected at the age of 17 and whose English autobiography published in 2015 became a New York Times bestseller, testifies about how she was educated in North Korea during her childhood to harbor hostility towards South Korea, the United States, and Japan in interviews. Notable figures advocating for North Korean human rights, such as Roberta Cohen, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, and Hanna Song, CEO of the organization LiNK (Liberty in North Korea), also lent their support. Woodrow Wilson Center Director Sue Mi Terry, a former CIA analyst on North Korean issues and Korean Peninsula Specialist, was listed as a “producer.” Terry commented, “This is an opportunity to show the humanitarian crisis in North Korea to the American public and the international community. When people watch the film, it will undoubtedly create a significant impact.”
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