Under the Sun

Based on unprecedented access, this film shows life in North Korea more extensively than ever. Director Vitaly Mansky received an official permission for this first Russian-North Korean documentary collaboration. The film follows a family in Pyongyang during one year through the eyes of 8-year-old Zin Mi, the only daughter of an obedient couple. Zin Mi‘s father works for the newspaper of a small factory, her mother in a dairy plant. Zin Mi participates in the giant patriotic shows North Korea is famous for, with huge living tableaus of the country’s leaders and achievements. Our contributors proudly become a part of those surreal shows. Staged impressions of North Korean pride are highlights of their lives, and they dissolve in them like pixels in a giant poster. These shows, and other expressions of organised hyperreality are juxtaposed with images of everyday life that reveal uniformity, bleakness and poverty.