Published on May 4, 2011
Documentary film is a potent source of knowledge production, carrying assumptions of authority and sobriety. It offers the audience “reality,” even as it mediates heavily and imposes discursive judgments onto the subject matter. This subjectivity is especially problematic in documentary films about North Korea, as Western filmmakers find it difficult to escape wartime racism, anticommunist, and Orientalist frameworks, while at the same time the DPRK resists knowledge production about itself.
This USKI Working Paper by Andray Abrahamian looks at four influential films–Welcome to North Korea, The Vice Guide to North Korea, A State of Mind, and North Korea: A Day in the Life–to examine how they cope with problems of subjectivity, bias, and representing reality. Download the paper here.
Published on September 29, 2010
On October 18, 2010, at 6pm, the U.S.-Korea Institute and the Korea Studies Program at SAIS are pleased to host a screening and discussion of Deann Borshay Liem’s latest documentary, In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee, at the Kenney Auditorium (1740 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036) at SAIS.
Her passport said she was Cha Jung Hee. She knew she was not. So began a 40-year deception for a Korean adoptee who came to the United States in 1966. Told to keep her true identity a secret from her new American family, this eight-year-old girl quickly forgot she was ever anyone else. But why had her identity been switched? And who was the real Cha Jung Hee? read more …
Published on October 30, 2008
October 29, 2008
Screening and Discussion with Nicholas Bonner, Co-producer, Crossing the Line
In 1962, a U.S. soldier guarding the DMZ deserted his unit, walked across the most heavily fortified border on earth and defected to North Korea. His name was James Joseph Dresnok, but today, after 40 years of living in Pyongyang and starring in North Korean propaganda movies, he’s better known as Comrade Joe.
Crossing the Line, a documentary directed by Daniel Gordon and co-produced by Nicholas Bonner, goes inside North Korea to tell Dresnok’s story for the first time. Allowed unprecedented access to Dresnok by the North Korean authorities, the filmmakers reveal the full story of his defection, as well as the political intrigue and personal passions that have kept him behind the Cold War’s last frontier ever since.
Co-Sponsored by: The U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS, The Sejong Society of Washington, D.C., and The National Committee on North Korea (NCNK)
This screening is part of a nationwide tour organized in part by the Korea Society.
About the Speaker
Nicholas Bonner is the director of Koryo Tours, which has specialized in travel to and cultural exchanges with the DPRK since 1993. Working in conjunction with VeryMuchSo Productions, Bonner has produced three documentaries inside North Korea: The Game of Their Lives (2001), A State of Mind (2005) and Crossing the Line (2007). He is currently developing a romantic comedy feature film to be shot in Pyongyang in 2009. Also a collector of North Korean art, pieces from Bonner’s collection of woodcut prints is currently on display in North Korean Images at Utopia’s Edge at The Korea Society Gallery.
Documentary film is a potent source of knowledge production, carrying assumptions of authority and sobriety. It offers the audience “reality,” even as it mediates heavily and imposes discursive judgments onto the subject matter. This subjectivity is especially problematic in documentary films about North Korea, as Western filmmakers find it difficult to escape wartime racism, anticommunist, and Orientalist frameworks, while at the same time the DPRK resists knowledge production about itself.
