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SFFILM Festival

Under the Sun

Directed by Vitaly Mansky

Russia/Latvia/Germany/Czech Republic/North Korea | 106

30 Apr
Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 6:00 pm PT

Description

Shot with the permission and supervision of North Korean authorities—a collaboration they would come to regret—Under the Sun turns a propaganda effort into a deep-cover documentary about life inside one of the world’s most repressive nations. Russian director Vitaly Mansky was guided to preapproved locations in Pyongyang and provided with model subjects: young Lee Zin-mi, a student at the city’s best school, and her parents, workers at two exemplary factories (or so officials claimed). The film follows Zin-mi as she studies the triumphs of Great Leader Kim Il-sung, joins the Children’s Union and participates in the national celebration of Kim Jong-il’s birthday. Each sequence is rigorously scripted for maximum ideological correctness, but Mansky shows the cracks in the façade: schoolchildren struggle to stay awake during lectures, adults’ carefully composed expressions flicker with exhaustion and anxiety and even the resolutely compliant Zin-mi eventually crumbles under pressure. By keeping the camera rolling while ever-present minders exhort the citizen-performers to play themselves “more joyfully,” Mansky reveals the grinding gears of the totalitarian message machine. “I wanted to make a film about the real Korea,” he said, but what he found instead was “the myth of a real life.” —Juliet Clark

Director Vitaly Mansky

Vitaly Mansky (Bliss, SFIFF 1997) was born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1963 and trained at the venerable VGIK film academy in Moscow. His previous films include Pipeline (2013), which traces the route of a gas pipeline between Siberia and Western Europe, and Motherland or Death (2011), a study of life in Cuba. A significant advocate for documentary film in Russia, Mansky is the director of the Artdocfest film festival.

Trailer

//player.vimeo.com/video/158107962?autoplay=1

Film Details

Language Korean

Year 2015

Runtime 106

Country Russia/Latvia/Germany/Czech Republic/North Korea

Director Vitaly Mansky

Producer Natalya Manskaya, Simone Baumann, Filip Remunda

Editor Andrej Paperny

Cinematographer Alexandra Ivanova, Mikhail Gorubchuk

Music Karlis Ausans