''Kimjongilia'' () is a
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
directed by N.C. Heikin that tells the stories of
North Korean prison camp survivors and escapees from the country. The film premiered at
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
in January 2009.
Contents
Life in North Korea is examined through interviews with
North Korean defectors
Since the division of Korea after the end of World War II, North Koreans have fled from the country in spite of legal punishment for political, ideological, religious, economic, moral, personal, or nutritional reasons. Such North Koreans are re ...
. Included are stories from people who served time in North Korean prisons, former military officers, and artists, among others.
The title is a reference to a
variety of flower named after North Korean leader
Kim Jong-il
Kim Jong-il (; ; ; born Yuri Irsenovich Kim;, 16 February 1941 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. He led North Korea from the 1994 death of his father Kim ...
.
Reception
The film had only a limited theatrical run and received mixed reviews. Reviewers acknowledged the importance of Heikin's subject, but found her juxtaposition of shocking narratives with interpretive dances distracting.
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, gave the film a weighted average of 44/100, based on only four reviews.
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
gave it a 60% rating out of 10 reviews.
See also
*
Kimjongilia
References
External links
*
N.C. Heikin Blog*
2009 films
American documentary films
Documentary films about human rights
Human rights abuses in North Korea
Documentary films about detention in North Korea
2000s American films
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