''Yodok Stories'' is a documentary film directed by

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

documentary screenwriter and director

Andrzej Fidyk Andrzej Fidyk (born in 1953, Warsaw) is a Polish documentary filmmaker, producer, and professor of the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School in Katowice. He is best known for work his 1989 documentary '' Defilada'' (''The Parade''), which depicts th ...

and produced by Torstein Grude. Today, more than 200,000 men, women and children face torture, starvation and murder in

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply ...

s. Few survive the atrocities, yet the camps population is kept stable by a steady influx of new persons considered to be '

class enemies The term enemy of the people or enemy of the nation, is a designation for the political or class opponents of the subgroup in power within a larger group. The term implies that by opposing the ruling subgroup, the "enemies" in question are ac ...

'. A small group of people have managed to flee the camps and start a new life in the prosperous

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

. The film follows some of these refugees who despite fear of persecution and death threats produce an extraordinary musical about their experiences in the Yodok concentration camp.

Awards

Yodok Stories won the Planet Doc Review, Youth Jury Award in Poland, The "In the spirit of freedom" award at Jerusalem Film Festival and the Bergen International Film Festival, Youth Jury's Documentary Award in 2008. The film has been screened at numerous film festivals worldwide, including the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

and

Sheffield Doc/Fest Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest), short for Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF), is an international documentary festival and Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England. The Festival includes film sc ...

in 2009.

References

External links

* *
Yodok Stories
from

Norwegian Film Institute The Norwegian Film Institute ( no, Norsk filminstitutt) was founded in 1955 to support and develop the Norwegian film industry. On 1 April 2008, it was merged with Norwegian Film Fund, Norwegian Film Development, and Norwegian Film Commission to ...

2008 films 2000s Korean-language films Documentary films about refugees Concentration camps in North Korea Documentary films about North Korea Films shot in South Korea Norwegian documentary films 2000s English-language films {{bio-documentary-film-stub