"In the Rays of the Sun" is the title of a documentary about the life of an eight-year-old schoolgirl Zin Mi in Pyongyang, the capital of the DPRK, filmed by a Russian director based on a script written by North Korean comrades.
The film has already collected a bunch of prizes and press, and also received a note from the DPRK Ministry of Culture to the Russian Foreign Ministry and the North Korean side's demand to ban it from further screening.
What did Mansky see in Pyongyang? How did he manage to take it off and what did he fail? And how he got out of the surveillance of the North Korean security officers - about this in an exclusive interview with The New Times after watching the film.
Were you offered to make a film about the DPRK or was it your decision?
Well, of course, mine … I have always been interested in North Korea, because I have always been worried about the question of how, how you can suppress a person, how you can destroy the fundamental principles in him, why a person is ready to obey. And it is clear that this film is not only about North Korea and not so much about North Korea. I read the magazine "Korea Today", eagerly grabbed at the people who were there, always watched some kind of video from there. And then one day I managed to get to know North Korean officials - and this is how it all started.
STALINSKAYA VDNH
When did you first come to the Juche country?
Promotional video:
In 2013, I had my first study trip: they showed me what a wonderful country it is, and ultimately I managed to choose a heroine: I was taken to an exemplary school, five girls were brought into the principal's office, they said: “You have five minutes, you can meet and choose who you like. The script of a documentary film about a girl who enters the pioneer, the Union of Children, she is entrusted with a very important task - to be a participant in the largest holiday in the world, for which she and her comrades have been preparing for a long time, and ultimately turns into one of thousands of people who create this is the world's largest living picture depicting absolute happiness - by this time it had already been painted. Although the heroine had yet to be chosen. I chose Zin Mi because the girl said that her dad works as a journalist: I thoughtthat through his work I can get somewhere. The girl said about her mother that she works in the factory canteen. I thought: great, dining room, people eat, also some kind of texture. And Zin Mi lives near the station, in a one-room apartment with mom, dad, grandfathers and grandmothers …
But in the film everything is not so: dad is not a journalist, and there is no canteen, and grandparents are also …
Naturally. When we arrived to shoot, dad miraculously turned into an engineer at an exemplary garment factory, mother - into an employee of an exemplary soy milk factory, and they, as it turned out, live in the most luxurious house in the capital with a fantastic view from the window. True, the linoleum there, depicting parquet, is simply cut off with scissors and lies on top of the cement floor - it is not even knocked out under the baseboards, the furniture has just been brought in, the pictures have just been hung, I took the opportunity and looked into the closet - it was empty, the bathroom was never used, yes, there is no water, the light was turned on during the filming: in general, I had the feeling that the house was uninhabited and the elevator was launched only for the sake of the film. But in this house at least three entrances were open. And the house opposite - I walked around it when I managed to escape from the escorts,- there was no entrance at all. At the same time in the evening the windows were burning in it, but looking closely, I saw that they all burned with the same lamps. Apparently, some kind of system has been installed, which in the evenings is switched on by a general switch, and a certain feeling of a residential building is created, although the house is not inhabited and there are no entrances. Everything is fake there.
Like this? Is the box just worth it?
Yes.
And mom and dad Zin Mi - are they real?
The real ones - I've seen the family album. But the photographs in this album were taken against some kind of fake background, mounted in photographs from a magazine or against the background of a furniture salon - I specially put these photographs at the beginning of the picture … After living there for a while, I realized that Pyongyang is an absolute Stalinist, Brezhnev's Exhibition of Economic Achievements, and all residents of Pyongyang are absolute exhibits. For example, there are lawns everywhere, and on the lawns early in the morning, at six in the morning, or in the evening, after work, bent over to death, people sit and use tweezers to take out some specks.
By the way, when we were filming at an exemplary garment factory, where our heroine's dad works as an engineer (see photo on page 46), I went to the toilet and made the wrong door. I open the door, and there are about 150 naked women who wash in the shower. I managed to look out the window, and I realized that there are residential barracks on the territory of the factory, and this scene when workers go to the factory is an absolute fake, because they live at the factory.
The main character of the film - 8-year-old Zin Mi in front of the North Korean version of Beloved Leader and Children.
What's the point in all this fake? There are almost no foreigners in Pyongyang, and if they do, then, as the story goes, they follow a strictly defined route?
I do not know. From the end of October to the beginning of April, the country is generally closed to foreigners: houses are heated either with coal or wood - the sight of burzhuikas sticking out of the windows is hardly attractive. North Korea now has two of the world's most important partners: China and, more recently, Russia has again become, which receives about 500 visas to North Korea a year. My three trips, group - four people - that's twelve visas; the annual arrival of the Alexandrov choir or the choir of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - this is take out a hundred visas, so count how many people come from Russia. From China, apparently, more. Well, and some very, very limited number of other foreigners.
Peeped Life
Why then did they go for this venture with the film - not only is it a Russian director, but also with your reputation as a rebel?
And how could they know if there is no Internet in the country? They probably believed that since Russia is their friend, the rules in Russia are the same, and they live there the same way as in North Korea. In addition, the film was officially supported by the Russian Ministry of Culture, and the director Mansky made films about Putin - this knowledge was enough for them.
How many expeditions did you have to North Korea?
Two. Although it should have been three, they closed our entrance.
Why? They noticed that you are secretly filming a film about the film - how this whole theater about the happiness of life in North Korea is played out, how takes are re-recorded, how these same attendants tell people what and how they should say?
They did not understand and did not see it. But they didn’t like that, for example, I was shooting from behind a curtain in a hotel … One day I wake up from the noise, go to the window and see an absolutely fantastic picture: six in the morning, the whole square, all the sidewalks are packed with people who are squatting, who just on the ass, someone is chewing something, someone is asleep, someone is lying - they were all driven to a rehearsal for the next rally. Naturally, I grab the camera and start shooting out the window. Three or four minutes pass - a knock on the door: my escorts, who lived to the right and left of my room, say: move away from the window, do you want us to never let you in again? Everything that was filmed in the film unofficially - people pushing the bus, children at the garbage cans, the queue to buy coupons - all this was filmed through a crack from behind a curtain.
Could you walk along the streets?
No, our passports were immediately taken away, and without passports it was impossible to go out. But we nevertheless ran out of the hotel a couple of times by fraudulent means, managed to run somewhere, until we switched on the "intercept" plan and we were not caught in the city.
Did you manage to enter the shops?
I've been to a department store a couple of times where I got into funny situations. The first time I was taken directly to this department store by my escorts. I walked around, looked, was surprised how cheap everything was. This was my first visit, and I did not realize what was the matter - besides, a foreigner has no right to have North Korean money, and therefore I could not buy anything. But then I managed to get some of their money, and with the accompanying people I went to buy some souvenirs. I come to a department store, there are mountains of funny notebooks, I ask: I have three notebooks. Answer: "You can't buy them." Then I realized: sellers, visitors, goods are not a real store, this is an exhibition hall. On another occasion, we - naturally with our escorts - went to a grocery store. There are about 15–20 people, all the shelves are stacked from top to bottom with bundles of tomato juice. I ask how much tomato juice costs. The accompanying person answers the traditional: "Then we will tell." Me: "No, translate now." The saleswoman says something for a long time, the attendant - to me: “They haven't brought the price tag yet,” or something like that. I say, “Okay. How much did tomato juice cost last week? " He translates: "Tomato juice is not for sale."
“I come to a department store, there are mountains of funny notebooks, I ask: I have three notebooks. The answer is "you can't buy them." Then I realized: sellers, visitors, goods - this is not a real store, this is an exhibition hall"
And where and what did your film crew eat?
We ate breakfast and dinner at the hotel, in the evening most often ate in the room - several times we bought food, some canned sausages in the store at our embassy. Sometimes we were taken to foreign currency restaurants: ten euros for lunch is inexpensive. It is inexpensive for us. Do you know what the salary is for the chief scriptwriter of a documentary film studio in Pyongyang, which employs 800 people? His salary is 75 cents a month.
In your film, there are shots when a family - mom, dad, a girl - gathers at a low table, which is all lined with plates of food. If in the country all products are distributed according to coupons, and shops are exhibitions, then where is it from?
This is food, which was brought packed in cellophane in our presence, unpacked, laid out on this table, set, and people were really afraid to touch it. Those accompanying them said: you eat, eat. They looked at them: is it really possible?
Filming at an exemplary garment factory. The man in the frame - Zin Mi's father is like an engineer. In the film, there are two takes of this scene: in the first, the employee reports that the plan is overfulfilled by 150%, the accompanying person stops her.
AFTER FEAR
But what's the point in stores where the only commodity is tomato juice and it's not for sale?
I do not understand. I have more questions after living in North Korea than before. I went there with some kind of quite intelligible idea. Well, first of all, I thought it was a system of fear, suppression, that people within themselves understand everything. But, having plunged in, I saw that people, in principle, not only do not understand, but do not even think …
I once talked with a tiger trainer: he explained to me that when a tiger is born - the one who is to perform in the circus - from the first day he is brought up in such a way that he does not know that he is a tiger. That is, he grows up, he grows claws, teeth, mustaches, he growls, he jumps, but he just does not know that he is a tiger …
Here's an example: we filmed on the subway. In Pyongyang, a foreigner cannot enter the metro without an escort and can only travel two stops. That is, he can see three stations. There is a special route for foreigners: enter at a certain station and get off at a certain station. We didn’t have time to finish filming in two stops and ask you to let us pass a few more stations. The answer is categorical no. They suggest going back and filming there. I explain: on the way back, there will be other people in the cars. The guides answer: this is not a problem. And they command people in the carriage: "We got up and crossed the station." And the whole carriage gets up, goes over and gets into the carriage, which goes in the opposite direction. Silently, without discussion.
And these were real people in the carriage?
How do I know?
Are you saying that there is no doublethink in North Korea, as it was even in the Stalinist USSR?
No, absolutely. There are people there - they were born in such a reality in which their parents and their grandfathers lived, and they have no information that life could be any other, - they do not go anywhere, they have no Internet. It seems to me that they no longer have fear - the horror is that this is something next, something after fear. You know, the strongest explanation and exposure, if you like, of a country is its television … Naturally, it is forbidden to record TV programs in North Korea, but we brought with us this setup: we recorded a television signal 24 hours a day on a hard drive - just in case. So, there are only two channels, of course, no advertising - instead of commercial breaks, clips about great leaders, content - either programs glorifying the leaders, or reading Juche. There is not even news in our understanding of the word.
"They are absolutely sure: somewhere there is a war, North Korean troops are leaving, there is a front line, soldiers are dying, and the leader is taking care of their children …"
And there are no films about love?
In no film in the history of North Korean cinema has anyone ever kissed.
Your heroes, mom and dad - did they somehow demonstrate their relationship?
No, no way. They carried out an important state business: they starred in a film.
Okay, but people can't help but wonder why they have food on the table in the film that they never ate or saw when they were born?
They know that they live badly only because the United States is against them … When we filmed the scene of the admission of children to the pioneers, the accompanying people showed us the children - seven or eight years old, in military uniform, and said: “Their parents died in the war, this children of war . What kind of war? The last war that North Korea fought was sixty years ago! But they are absolutely sure: somewhere there is a war, North Korean troops are leaving, there is a front line, soldiers are dying, and the leader is taking care of their children … They are fighting, they are actually fighting.
What do the newspapers look like there?
Three newspapers are published in North Korea. By the way, newspapers are forbidden to be taken out of the country and it is forbidden to use them as paper. So, all newspapers are published according to one template. The first page is the face of the leader on the entire page with a small text. The second page is the four faces of the leader already in some kind of set with something and small texts to this. The third page is the eight faces of the leader, as a rule, some general photographs. And the fourth page contains photographs of accomplishments, and in the very corner - events in the world: small texts with even smaller black-and-white photographs, which report on strikes, accidents, plane crashes. Every day there is a line at the kiosks for these newspapers.
A veteran of some unknown war tells children about victories under the leadership of the Great Leader.
You said that every day you had to submit footage. How did you manage to take out the surreptitious footage?
The operator complained of stomach every day and went to the toilet for 20 minutes. And copied the footage to another memory card. To be honest, this is probably the hardest film I've ever had - although I've had quite a few difficult films. But this one was psychologically very difficult. For days under observation, we speak with signs or go out into the corridor - and we had to discuss tomorrow's shooting, every night they barricaded themselves in the room so that no one would come in at night, so that the room could not be opened from outside at night …
How many days did you shoot in Pyongyang?
45. Although under the contract with the North Korean side, 75.
“The operator complained of stomach every day and went to the toilet for 20 minutes. And copied the footage secretly to another memory card"
What happened next?
And then we were not given permission to enter - and so on until the moment when they found out that the film would be shown at the Tallinn Film Festival: they did not know that the film was already running almost all over the world. Then they invited us to return and complete the picture. But what's the point? Well, our Ministry of Culture, after a note from the Koreans, asked to remove themselves from the film credits. Which is strange and stupid, because the requests of at least 30 of the largest festivals around the world have already been confirmed, several countries have already bought the film for TV screening, and in several European countries it is being released. And now my partners are discussing a contract for the release of this film in film distribution in the United States of America.
Will the film be shown in Russia?
It would be worth, in my opinion, to show it at a time when Dmitry Kiselev's program is running. But the television did not appeal to me. As for the film distribution, you will need to get a rental certificate - in the spring we will, I hope, deal with this.
Returning to the film: at the end of the picture, the girl suddenly burst into tears, your voice is heard behind the scenes, and in response Zin Mi begins to recite an oath of loyalty to the leader. What happened?
I think she cried because she felt a very big responsibility on herself, and she thought that she was not coping. She was chosen. Chosen to show the greatness, power of the country and loyalty to it, and when asked a question to which she does not seem to be answering enough, she cries from confusion. She says: "I cannot understand whether I did everything to be grateful to the great leader." And from the feeling that no, not everything, she begins to sob …
Evgeniya Albats
