(Music)
Now we want to take everyone to North Korea.
We have an unprecedented investigation by
the United Nations taking us inside a kind of hell.
-It's mad and sad and bad and silly all in the same time.
-Most tours go to North Korea with very low expectations.
Because everybody watches the documentaries,
reads the news, and so on.
And even if 90 percent of what they learn is not true,
at least it's something they've looked into.
Because everybody knows North Korea is an unusual place.
Everybody knows they do things differently to everyone else.
What we ignore is that there is life
for 24 million people there.
-The regime seeks to dominate every aspect
of its citizens' lives and terrorizes them from within.
We don't have much awareness of the Western mentality,
of how they perceive the Koreans from outside
from the rest of the world.
-For the outside world it's sort of a freak show.
That's part of the fascination with North Korea.
There aren't that many real mysteries left in the world,
and this is a closed, mysterious place.
Due to the U.S. hostile policy to our Korea,
they try to isolate and, you know,
stifle our country, consistently threaten our people.
-The situation in North Korea is extremely grave.
The country is a totalitarian regime.
It is a regime that doesn't respect
the universal human rights of its citizens.
-Amnesty International, which has been investigating
human rights violations for the last 50 years,
we find North Korea to be in a category of its own.
There's a severe food crisis.
Freedom of expression, freedom of speech,
freedom of association is severely curtailed.
-Torture, rape, forced abortion, and execution.
-Just unprecedented crimes against humanity.
And the world can't close its eyes to that
and pretend it's not there just because there's a nuclear problem.
-Pyongyang warns an explosion is imminent,
and war could break out today or tomorrow.
-North Korea does not and will not benefit
from violating international law.
-How concerned should we be?
-How dangerous is the situation?
-This is how wars start.
-Threats of terror-like violence and another premiere cancelled.
-We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace
can start imposing censorship
here in the United States.
Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks
out of releasing a satirical movie,
imagine what they'd start doing when they see
a documentary that they don't like.
We honor, we honor to the highest degree
our Great Leader Kim Jong-un we honor to the highest degree.
We honor, we honor to the highest degree
our Great Leader Kim Jong-un.
We honor to the highest degree.
North Korea is known as the Hermit Kingdom,
and there is a reason for this.
It is almost impossible to get in, especially with a camera.
Over the centuries, Korea has been invaded more than 100 times
by its powerful neighbors China and Japan.
Today, it remains the last stronghold of communism.
My name is Alvaro Longoria. I am a filmmaker from Spain.
For many years, I have been rather fascinated by North Korea.
Probably like you, I have wondered:
Is everything we read and hear about North Korea really true?
Over the next days, is my quest to seek out the truth.
After many failed attempts to get into the country,
I heard about Alejandro,
the only foreigner who works for the government of North Korea.
I contacted him through Facebook
and a year later, we were officially invited into the country.
Sponsored by Alejandro,
and provided we followed their strict rules,
we would be granted privileged access.
(Music)
We were put on a predetermined itinerary
and could not leave the hotel alone.
At all times we were accompanied by our Korean guides.
In theory, we were allowed to interview anybody we wanted.
(Music)
-Korea is a small country thousands of miles away.
But what is happening there is important to every American.
-A highly trained and well-equipped North Korean army
swarmed across the 38th parallel to attack
unprepared South Korean defenders.
(Explosions)
-The scene was set for a war between North and South.
With the North supplied by China with tacet backing
from the Soviet Union.
And the South supported by the United States and its allies.
-The cost was high to Americans
who bore the brunt under the UN banner.
Here they faced an enemy who ruthlessly slaughtered prisoners,
many with their arms bound.
(Music)
-First films of the ceremonies at Panmunjom
that end 3 years of bitter, costly conflict.
(Music)
The bulky agreement spells out in minutest detail
every provision of the truce.
The ceasefire is good news to the men at the front,
but it is almost sombre here.
Every UN member present knows that the big problems
remain to be solved, even if the enemy acts in good faith.
But there is hope. A big step forward has been taken.
The armistice becomes official.
The fighting is over.
Prisoners will be exchanged, but there is little rejoicing.
The Cold War is on, and the Free World wonders what next.
On day one, we headed to the South Korean border,
the most militarized in the world,
wrongly named the "Demilitarized Zone".
In the 200 km highway from Pyongyang,
we only saw one car,
a couple of bicycles and a bus.
Until September of 1945, when the U.S. occupied South Korea,
the 38th parallel marked the division between the North and the South.
The intention of the U.S. when they occupied South Korea,
was to provoke a war with North Korea
and to keep advancing to the north of the country to rule over all of Asia.
This is the division of the country that was made back then
and has remained untouched
causing misery and distress for more than half a century.
Around this line there is an area of 4 km called
the "Demilitarized Zone".
Panmunjom is the most unstable place in the world
where 2 nations at war are not separated by a physical border.
(Music)
The Demilitarized Zone was not what we expected.
(Music)
This is probably the most dangerous place in the world.
At the moment that's what they say the most heavily militarized...
But here it's very peaceful, on our side.
On our side it looks very relaxed.
To be honest, we were expecting something much more...
Except for the clapping.
Over there, that's South Korea
and those blue buildings are the border.
This place is strange and it feels like a tourist attraction.
This is the only place
where we can cross from the North to the South.
This room has been the setting for approximately 12,000 meetings
since the end of the war until March of 1991.
The purpose of these meetings was to denounce the acts of provocation
and the violations of the conditions of the armistice by the U.S.
Since the end of the war until 1991,
more than 815,000 infractions have been registered
committed by the U.S. government.
The violation of the conditions of the armistice
has caused that, at any time, nuclear war could break out in Korea.
In order to preserve peace in Korea and in the World,
we need to design a new system that can assure peace
between us and the U.S.
But the U.S. keeps doing military tests
and every year they increase
the deployment of nuclear weapons in South Korea.
Our victory is not recognized by the U.S.
and doesn't appear in their books.
We do not know how it will be taught in the future.
Documents, they showed
how the war was prepared by the North Koreans.
Evidence from the Russian and Chinese archives
was published 20 years ago,
but most North Koreans still believe
the war was initiated by the Americans.
When I was in North Korea
I was taught that America started the Korean War
but when I came to South Korea and studied the history,
I realized that it was actually North Korea
that first attacked South Korea.
We always explain the Korean War was started by the U.S.
although there was a fight going on
because our guerillas led by President Kim Il-sung,
liberated the Northern half
while the U.S. was advancing from the South.
Then they collided and there were many skirmishes and fighting.
Even if the Americans recognize their wrongdoing,
we won't let them enter our country,
nor will we let them sign this treaty.
In school we are taught
that the United States
is the cause of our economic hardship
and the reason why our lives are so difficult.
That is why the North Koreans believe the U.S. is to blame
for their mortification and their dissatisfaction.
It is all the fault of the United States.
(Dramatic music playing)
We cannot live like enemies forever.
Some people change their policies,
or apologize for the past
but, speaking of Americans they never did.
Imperialists are still...
they didn't throw away their policy.
They're sanctioning and stifling ours.
So defending our country,
of course, that matter comes first.
Military force is very important,
so we are enforcing Songun politics
even in present times.
"Army first" politics.
It means a country without a powerful army
cannot survive.
It will be always dependent
on the big superpowers.
The principle of the Songun revolution
is that the army is the party, the nation and the people.
This means the party can only subsist and prosper
thanks to the military forces.
Songun is a statement by the North Korean Government.
The soldiers are the most progressive class in the society,
who is playing the leading role in defining its political line.
These statements however are completely unrelated to reality,
it's just the rhetoric exercise by the professional ideologues.
Korea spends 16% of its GDP on the military.
This is huge, considering the economic situation
where there is widespread hunger and poverty.
However, given the geographic location,
Korea needs to keep up this investment
as they have to be prepared for war at any moment.
-North Korea, the secretive nation with its mysterious
young dictator, announcing they will test their
nuclear power, a rocket big enough
and with enough range to reach the west coast
of the United States.
May represent the most advanced technology
we've ever seen come out of North Korea.
-It's terrifying.
-So thrilled was this country
by their rocket launch fireworks ripped through the sky.
North Korean newscasters announced the successful launch
with ecstasy.
The launch has been a success!
(Music)
We are always on the verge of nuclear war.
The U.S. is allowed to have
the highest amount of nuclear weapons.
We cannot afford to be unprotected.
(Music)
North Korea aims for the nuclear bomb
since the 90s,
because, until then,
it has been protected by the soviet nuclear umbrella.
And this is something that the Western media always forget:
Korea has always been under the threat
of the Western nuclear weapon
always.
We are forced you can understand it,
when they are organizing a sort of big campaign,
a military campaign,
and execute military rehearsals every year
in front of our nose,
we can't stay with folded arms
we have to do our part of the job.
This is self-defense, definitely.
-These are among the biggest simulated battles
staged anywhere in the world.
And, on occasion, these exercises have provoked
a violent reaction from the North.
Sometimes the North has held its own exercises
determined to show its military might.
On other occasions, the bombardment has been real.
It's much more interesting to analyze
the "menace"
that North Korea represents for the rest of the world.
It's a country that has never invaded others,
whose army is basically made of junk.
It's like comparing
a space station
with a toaster.
(Gunfire)
-It's not a joke.
It's a country with the fourth largest
standing army in the world.
It's a country which is armed to the teeth
with 20 nuclear warheads and with an increasingly
sophisticated missile delivery system.
If we didn't protect ourselves, if we weren't strong,
we would succumb to the menace of imperialism.
Armed robbery has to be answered with weapons.
A powerful army needs to be prepared to overthrow the imperialist invader.
(Music)
It's a credible argument,
It's not a crazy idea of the Kims', to get nuclear weapons,
it is a matter of survival.
Based on what happened to Saddam Hussein
after they did engage in some disarmament,
so the North Koreans feel that the only thing
that's protecting them is their nuclear weapons.
Do you think if you didn't have the nuclear weapon
you would have been invaded?
Most probably, yes.
Only by building a powerful and nuclear deterrence force
we can stop the bullying and the threats from the U.S.
My dream has always been
to be a member of our Korean People's Army
since I was so young.
(Music)
I could say that I am born in Spain,
I am born Spanish but adopted North Korean.
The way he speaks about our country,
the way he appreciates our country,
is very much valued by our people.
they like him.
And sometimes,
in the streets,
some Koreans recognize him
"Oh, hello, I saw you before!",
and "I am so happy to meet you!" like that.
There are a lot of sympathizers.
But it is not often that someone goes as far
as to be willing to give his life for us,
like Alejandro.
When I was 16, I had my first encounter
with the minister Li Jong Gun
and he instructed me on what the country really means
and this was my first relationship with a North Korean friend.
He had seen my potential and he told me:
"Alejandro, you cannot waste your capacity, your knowledge,
as a soldier of the People's Army. We have millions of soldiers.
But we don't have anyone who understands,
who's been born into capitalism,
and who can act as a bridge between both cultures,
between both ideologies.
Our party, our country, needs you outside."
He was like a mentor to Alejandro.
He told me once:
"Your son is the number one Korean."
It was a surprise for us.
We knew very little about the country.
So you are influenced by the ideas,
the news, everything you hear.
It affects you.
So, we were somehow...
not afraid,
but we felt we needed to act with caution
and we told him to be very aware
and to take precaution.
He had an interest in communism,
he was looking for that model society,
a society that distributed the riches among all citizens,
that was fair, because he hadn't found one.
So when he was a member of political parties
like Izquierda Unida, or the Communist Party
he realized that the ideas were beautiful,
but the people in charge
were
selfish,
ambitious,
and that clashed with his personality
so he kept looking.
The way to reach the socialist paradise
depends on our Great Leader Kim Jong-il.
Long live our Great Leader Kim Jong-il!
Long live the DPRK!
(Applause)
(Music)
Where are you taking us now?
We are going to the Mansu bronze statues of our Great Leaders,
President Kim Il-sung and our Generalissimo Kim Jong-il.
We are going to present a flower bouquet as a symbol of respect
for April 15th,
which is the birthday anniversary of President Kim Il-sung.
Everybody can buy flowers
and offer them as a symbol of respect
for his work and dedication for the revolution.
That's a tradition. In all national holidays,
even when you marry, to come and pay respect to our leaders
because, more than anything,
the leaders are our fathers.
We are part of a big family,
and, in that family the figures of the leaders
are like the fathers of the full society.
(Music)
Our hearts are full of respect for our leaders.
We come here often, as if this were our own house,
to thank them.
We North Koreans feel very proud
of having leaders
that the whole world admires.
(Music)
Good morning, sir.
-I'm Alejandro, the Spanish soldier. -He's a soldier of our General.
He is doing a great job making relations for our country.
Yes, my General.
So is he a veteran from the war?
He fought in the revolution war.
I went to the river Nakdong.
Then I fought with the Chinese People's Army.
I hope in my life to follow his footsteps
and also give my life for the motherland
and preserving socialism and our Great Leaders.
We feel very, very proud
and we feel very strong.
We have the motivation to fight against imperialism.
And they won't be able to attack us, we are a very strong country.
I am 82 years old.
Thanks to Great Leader Kim Jong-il and to Kim Jong-un
veterans like me
enjoy many benefits from the government.
For example, we have a house, but there are many other things.
We have a special card for medical assistance
and we receive all kinds of treatments and care.
We also have access to limited food, like some vegetables.
In general we enjoy many commodities.
Life in this country as opposed to capitalism,
is guaranteed for all the people.
Housing, medical service,
education in the university food, clothing,
whatever you need in the daily life is provided, guaranteed for free.
All the necessary daily necessities we get from the government.
We don't pay taxes,
we don't pay for the houses...
Under the wise leadership of our Marshal Kim Jong-un,
the economy of our country is developing step by step.
As you may see, in Pyongyang there are many new apartment houses
and new museums and many recreation places for the people.
Not only in Pyongyang but also in the countryside,
we are constructing amenities facilities and many places
which is conducive to improving the livelihood of the people.
Our Great Leader Comrade Kim Jong-il
first defended the country and then created the foundation
on which we can improve our economy.
So, are you happy?
Yes.
(Music)
Ok, so here is the main building of the War Museum.
As you see here the museum consists of three floors.
And you see this is a statue
of the Great Leader President Kim Il-sung,
who defeated two imperialisms in one generation.
As you know he defeated the Japanese army and the Americans.
And here we'll make a line
and we'll make a bow to our Great Leader President Kim Il-sung.
We were alone there,
despite the fact that it's Sunday and it should be full.
It's hard to understand why that is.
Maybe it's only the military that go there,
maybe it's not open for regular people... We don't know.
It's nearly built, now.
There were many specialists, designers...
But I am sure Marshal Kim Jong-un
instructed it from the start to the end.
This panorama is an oil painting,
it's 15 metres high and 132 metres long
and 42 meters diameter.
Also it's only 13.5 metres away from your seat to the picture
but you can see more than 40 kilometres away from the picture.
So, watching this, are you proud?
Yes, very proud.
The Korean people can visit here and they can experience
how the Korean People's Army
have fought against the invaders.
Now we can take the route of Marshal Kim Jong-un.
Did he...
use the machines?
That's the one.
Muscle development machine used
by our esteemed Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un.
When our respected Marshal Comrade Kim Jong-un
was looking around this,
it was not a slide, there was a step.
But he told us, very wisely
if there is a step, people will get hurt, by the sharp edges,
and he told our construction workers
to change this into a slide.
Socialist hamburgers hot dogs, chicken wings...
Not the American McDonald's.
Not American communist state products.
(Music)
For the first time in five days, we are alone.
It's amazing...
Oh, here they come.
This building was built only last year
so this is the most updated and modern.
Very luxury.
Watching U.S. movies is prohibited,
strangely, Disney's "Brave" was playing on the TV.
This building has 300 apartments and they are all the same.
They are presents from Kim Jong-un to teachers for spreading his word.
Can you ask her to show us the fridge?
What is she cooking for tonight?
She is too shy. We never saw the fridge.
(Shrieking)
One question that keeps on coming back to my mind is:
where is the money coming from?
Lots of new constructions...
Lots of new stuff like this I mean, this is not a set.
Would you say that living conditions have improved?
Not only my family,
but all Korean people are happy to lead such happy, civilized lives
and we are enjoying this updated amusement park,
so we are happy.
After only 5 days in Pyongyang,
the constant propaganda was starting to work.
With enough time maybe even I could be convinced.
What does he do?
I was in the army
but now I have entered university.
So after the army he went to university.
What is he studying?
Locomotive driver.
What is his aspiration in life?
His dream? His goal?
My dream?
I want to be a locomotive driver
to work for my Great Leader.
-There's a system in North Korea called songbun.
And it's a ranking by your loyalty
to the leadership.
And people are divided into a core class
of those who are considered the party members
and the real supporters of the regime.
And then there's a wavering class
in the middle, the vast middle,
and then the undesirables at the bottom.
And where you live, what kind of job you have,
where you go to school, that's based on your class.
There are three free benefits in North Korea:
free housing, free medical care and free education.
Although there is free medical care, there is no medicine to cure,
and with free housing you cannot choose where you want to live
and with free education you have to learn the ideology of the regime
even if you don't want to.
We salute him when we go to school
and we salute him again when we go back home.
He is the one who loves us the most
us, the children.
Our father, General Kim Jong-il.
(Music)
-North Koreans are brainwashed from the minute they're born.
Almost the first thing they learn to say is
"thank you, dear leader."
He is the one who loves us the most, us, the children.
Our father, General Kim Jong-il.
(Applause)
(Music)
First it's education, obviously it's very important,
since you are a kid,
that you grow up and you learn to live
according to the ideology to the communism.
Then, of course,
the education provided not only by professors or teachers
but the mass media or televisions, newspapers and so on
work on human values
and try to make the people better in their daily lives.
(Music)
We think that everything that appears in the film,
all the workers and all the people,
must collaborate in benefit of the people.
(Music)
Propaganda can also be used as a means of education
to contribute to the culture of our citizens.
-Kim Jong-il was very involved in film.
He wrote a book called Kim Jong-il on The Art of Cinema
explaining how film could be used to instill
patriotism in the masses.
They certainly recognize the role of domestic propaganda.
(Music)
The idea Juche, created by Kim Il-sung,
was developed by Kim Jong-il. It establishes the principle
that if we leave everything in the hands of society,
the latter can decide everything.
It's a concept that cannot be compared
to any other ideology of the past
or the teachings of Confucius.
-It probably began in the idealism of a kind of
communism, but also a kind of nationalism
and romantic historicism.
-It kind of started out as kind of a humanistic
approach to philosophy, a humanistic idea
that man was the centre of the universe,
that man could go accomplish all of his problems.
And it became-- like Kim Jong-il as the worship
of the dear leader, it really became
a way to control.
It's an ideology that intends to combine
Marxism Leninism,
the ideas of Mao Zedong
and religion.
Of course, to make a combination of all
that you need to make it so nobody can understand it.
If no one can understand it, no one will protest against it.
It basically says man is the master of all things.
And everything has to be done in a peculiar way
which is suitable for this current situation.
Wonderful.
Such a great philosophical discovery.
And if you look at what North Koreans write about Juche
you see it's a platitude after platitude.
Juche ideology in North Korea is like the Bible in Christianity,
it's like words from God,
so North Koreans have to believe
the Juche ideology without any questions.
What they need to do is to learn it by heart.
They know it, and they can recite it,
like the Quran
or the Bible.
Who is going to dare to say: "I don't understand this."
No one dares,
much less so in a country like Korea.
You don't understand it?
North Koreans don't understand it either.
I had a strict education.
If I didn't believe what I was being taught,
I was punished.
I can basically say
Juche is nothing.
Because you can basically summarize Marxism
but you cannot summarize Juche.
Is this clear?
Could you summarize, briefly what the Juche idea is?
Are you a specialist in philosophy?
No, I try to understand.
The best explanation is to see our reality.
It's better to know our country than to listen to me a hundred times.
It's better to see our reality than to listen to my words.
(Music)
What you see here is three huge doors,
metallic, that will close in the event of a U.S. attack.
One, two and three will be completely sealed
from the exterior, you see? All these frames?
In case of attack,
everything is ready to use the underground transportation system
to move the people and shelter hundreds of thousands.
Maybe him?
Or all of them
at the same time?
Him?
Good morning, sir.
He is a director from Spain.
-It's a pleasure. -The same.
He would like to ask you some questions.
In many countries especially in the Western world,
people are very impressed
with the love and reverence
of the Korean people as one family united around their leader.
They cannot understand the power of that unity.
What would you say to those people,
in other countries of the world
that don't understand?
How can there be such a single-minded unity?
I cannot think of a specific way
to explain it to the people who don't understand us.
But if they came here, if they saw the reality,
maybe they could understand us.
That would be worth a thousand words.
It would be much more convincing.
What he says is true:
if you don't come, if you don't see it,
if you don't ask the people, you'll never believe it.
That is the strength of Korea.
-Most foreigners have never met a North Korean.
Most North Koreans have never met a foreigner.
The view that we have of them is very negative.
The view they have of us is even more negative.
-Where are you from? -Spain.
Do you know where Spain is?
Why are you here in DPRK?
Because we want to know how people live here.
We are very happy.
Are they as happy as we are?
Do they have a president?
In Spain are there also people who love children?
All kids like you like football.
What is your favorite Spanish league team?
-Koreo! -No, Spanish league.
Barcelona!
Me, Atlético de Madrid.
Is it better and more beautiful than here?
Some parts are similar
but this country is very beautiful.
So many foreigners when they first come to our country,
they are just, you could say surprised, at the realities.
When they come and see this they say: "This is wonderful."
When they come here and they see the Korean people
wearing different dresses they say:
"Wow, when I was abroad,
there was a propaganda that said
that Korean people had to wear only one uniform,
you know, just like
one clothing, with no differences".
I think
foreigners need to come here and see the reality.
-I understand that especially with North Korea,
you've got so much misinformation and so little information.
It's not so much misinformation,
I feel that any scrap of information that the West gets,
it's like, well, they did this, let's make a story out of it.
And there's no information on it.
-When there's a vacuum, it's easy to create
and make it believable.
Sometimes they are created as a parody,
and it still rings true.
Why, because we just know so little about the country.
North Korea is an unimaginable country.
There is only one TV channel.
There is no Internet.
We aren't free to sing, say,
wear or think what we want.
North Korea is the only country in the world,
that executes people,
for making unauthorized international phone calls.
-The North Korean government has announced
that it found a unicorn.
(Laughing)
-Ah, foreigners are funny.
-A unicorn is a mythical creature that the Greeks
first mentioned, but it's in North Korea.
Now my question to you is if you were
a unicorn, you would go to North Korea, right?
I mean that's the only place you'd want to be is there.
-But everything's like that with North Korea.
It's always an exaggeration and a parody and, you know,
kind of a freak show, which I think those of us
who cover North Korea find a little bit distressing
because it's not actually very funny
to the 24 million people who live there.
-The price of such limited information flow
back and forth is that we perpetuate stereotypes
of a country or a society.
And I think that's the danger, that's the price that we pay
when we close off a country or we isolate a country,
like North Korea.
-North Korea local media reporting that men now
have to wear their hair just like their leader,
Kim Jong-un.
-So when we hear oh, everybody has to have
the same haircut, you think well, you know,
if that was true anywhere it would probably be true there.
-Haircuts have reportedly been state-approved
in North Korea for some time.
Men could choose between 10 hairstyles, women 18.
It was mandatory in North Korea
that everybody cut their hair in 14 different styles.
There are 18 styles.
Of course the women can chose their own style,
and if the hairstyle they want is not here,
then they can ask the hairdresser "I want this, this, this..."
And it's ok.
There isn't any kind of rule saying you can cut it only this way, no,
it's the Western propaganda on our country,
it's unacceptable.
I was quite surprised to be asked that kind of question, you know,
when you first asked
but it's not true, you know?
-I don't accept that there is propaganda
against North Korea.
There is no democracy there is no free press,
there is no... whatever bullshit... frankly speaking.
This is a war.
And in the war we defend our idea.
-We defend our equality. -Are we in a propaganda war?
Yeah, that's right.
And I'm proud to be in the forefront of that propaganda war.
-On Tuesday a shadowy group of hackers
calling themselves Guardians of Peace
threatened violence of 9/11 proportions
against movie theatres that showed
the Seth Rogen-James Franco comedy about a plot
to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
It's an act of war,
it's a direct insult and a mockery.
But it's a special mockery because in this case
they are killing a living leader
which is never allowed or tolerated in any other country of the world.
And I want to insist on that,
this movie, if Obama took the place of our leader Kim Jong-un
it will be considered immediately a terrorist act.
For them it was a supreme,
it was a kind of offense a serious offense,
because it was a blasphemy.
I hope and I wish they will lose a lot of money.
It has created enough trouble in Sony Pictures
but it will not be as profitable as they thought.
-"The Interview" has become
the most successful online movie ever to be released
by the studio.
The film raked in over $15 million
and was downloaded more than 2 million times.
(Music)
The children wanted to wave to the foreign guests.
They were waving and saying bye bye,
but he took pictures,
and put them in the newspaper or a magazine,
making the comment that the children were asking for help.
-We don't get instructions from the government,
nor from our editors as to what specifically to do.
That is a common perception, I know, in China as well.
But, no, I have to clearly say we are never
an extension of US policies.
In the newspaper there was a photo
where the children were receiving the scarves.
The explanation of the photograph said:
"Preparing to be military."
It said that.
It was fake.
It's manipulation. They use a photograph
and then manipulate the text around it to generate falseness.
-A rally staged by the Korean Children's Union,
they pledge allegiance to the state and get
their red scarves.
They asked us if all the Korean people were suffering from hunger
if they had nothing to eat,
they said that...
Not at all!
They also spoke about executions, saying we killed people in public.
-Authorities reportedly machine-gunned 8 hooded people
in front of a crowd of 10,000 in a sports stadium
in the port city of Wonsan.
Which crimes are committed in my country against humanity?
Crimes against humanity in political prison camps,
crimes against humanity in ordinary prison system,
crimes against humanity targeting religious believers
and others considered to introduce subversive influences.
The COI report is totally
and severely distorting and faking up
our real situation of human rights
in DPRK
by creating political confrontation.
And the reason for those findings are set out in detail
supported by actual testimony in each case.
Even the Western mass media report that
the most probable testimonies made by defectors
are forced by leading questions.
The guards were not trained to torture
but to shoot anyone who rebelled or tried to escape.
We were told that if a war started
we had to kill every prisoner to erase the evidence.
That was my job.
Torture, battering on a large scale...
Specially in the prison camps
and in other detention centers in North Korea.
I think the intelligent person will see
that all the propaganda against the DPRK,
all the horror stories of the concentration camps,
and public executions
have no evidence at all.
And even now,
who used to be the most representative defectors
of North Korea
are withdrawing their stories.
-It was a symbol of North Korea's human rights abuses,
but the defector now admits not everything was true.
-I'm sure there may be somebody who may have
embellished their story.
But I know there's a lot of self-policing among the defectors.
Because they know, they know that the only way this issue
is either going to get the attention is they are credible.
We wanted to live as humans.
None of our investigations have been disqualified as false.
We have been criticized as an organization.
You can find in so many reports,
even in their official budget,
that they are receiving so much money from governments,
which they are supposed not to do.
-North Korea says that universal human
rights is propaganda.
What they call human rights
is the globalization of capitalism.
These organizations are used
to infiltrate other countries
to impose the American way of life
and the American politics.
What they call human rights
is not the human right to have shelter,
to have food to have water,
to have education; it's not that.
Because USA is the first country
that never accomplishes that kind of human rights.
-If you call that propaganda, I call it universal human rights.
Ideally, if the North Korean government had nothing to hide,
they should allow the entrance of international agencies.
That's the point.
You will never open the door to your house
to a person who has been insulting your father,
insulting you
and threatening you,
and sanctioning you.
If you don't know something,
if for you the DPRK is a black hole,
you say: "I don't know anything about DPRK.
It's such a misterious country.
It's a secret country." Ok! That's fine! It's true!
It's a secret country you can say that.
It's a fortress.
We are very much protecting our system.
Tell me the lie
that angers you the most.
The lie that angers me the most will be probably
that our Korean people my comrades,
they are forced to believe in our system.
Like there was someone,
one soldier with one machine gun pointing at each one of our citizens,
to force them to follow our system.
(Music)
The figure of the leader is the father.
It's not a dictatorship like many Western people lie
and believe in that kind of missinformation.
He is, as a father giving precious instructions
and giving his life for the welfare of the people.
And then the people also show their love to him
by accepting him as a father.
That's why we always call ourselves family,
even if we are not from the same family.
But being comrades and having the same leader...
We help each other, in everything.
That's the feeling: a big community.
Do the people in North Korea
have the same feeling
for the leader Kim Il-sung as for the others?
We've never thought
our President Kim Il-sung did much more
and General Kim Jong-il did little.
No, all things are the same all achievements are great,
and the way he did is the way the General did
and is the way that Marshal Kim Jong-un is doing.
So, for Marshal Kim Jong-un you have the same love as...
Yes, we have the same love because we...
just lost our beloved fathers...,
so, we even love them with more passion...
Just thinking of our fathers you know, it's just...
Later I can explain it.
-Tonight an 11-day period of mourning is underway
for Kim Jong-il, the dictator who died Saturday.
And we were struck by images from inside the Hermit Kingdom
showing grief-stricken North Koreans in despair,
wailing uncontrollably.
But is all that emotion real or is there a bit of both?
He is just like a father taking care,
but not just taking care of a son he takes care of all society.
He kind of adopted the whole society.
God cannot die.
Nobody believed it when we were told the person we considered God
had died.
I could not accept it as truth.
It was very emotional for the people, everyone was crying.
I cried a lot.
It affected me a lot.
That's why all the people cry on the streets.
How can it be?
People cannot understand,
Is it a theatre? It's not a theatre.
This is an insult.
And when you live so far away, and the culture is so different,
for Western people it will be hard to understand.
But you cannot really try to feel the same
that Korean people feel
but you can by talking to the people,
see that it's a true feeling.
We haven't really gotten
any deep knowledge or understanding of the philosophy or the ideology.
We get a lot of information from Alejandro,
very deep thoughts and very clear theories,
of eveything that lies behind it,
but no North Korean will tell us anything about it.
So we have to rely on what Alejandro is telling us,
and at the end he is not really a North Korean,
even though he has been coming and going
with foreign visitors for the last 20 years,
that doesn't make you a North Korean.
(Music)
It became a sort of tradition or custom,
to visit every year this flower festival.
And you see here this flower is Kimilsungia
-This one is Kimilsungia? -Yes. You didn't know?
Look around the whole festival.
This flower is called after his name.
It's cultivated in Indonesia.
And the Indonesian president Sukarno,
he asked our President Kim Il-sung
to name this flower after his name
as a sign of respect towards our Generalissimo Kim Il-sung.
Why wouldn't we be happy today?
Our country and all the citizens of the world
are celebrating our Great Leader.
One has to understand the North Korean system
and its propaganda are based on a strong epic national history.
Its foundation is real and incredibly strong.
A leader,
especially a kind of absolute leader in a monarchy,
is usually seen
as a god.
Ideology has always been, in communist countries,
a substitute for religion.
-They've taken a lot of imagery from the New Testament.
I think it's part of the reason
that Christianity is such a taboo in North Korea.
They have their stars when Kim Jong-il was born
and double rainbows and all of this.
It's kind of a rip-off of the bible.
-Many cultures in Asia have that tradition.
It's feudalism, in essence.
The feudal lords ruled over the subjects basically.
And this is a continuation of that.
Visiting a church was not on the itinerary,
but I told them I was a Christian and wanted to attend mass.
After plenty of phone calls, we finally got permission.
(Congregation singing)
This idea that people have
that people are being executed for being Christians.
I want to know about this.
Of course, you can see it by yourself.
So, the traditional religions in North Korea
are Christian;
among Christians we have Catholics like this church;
we have also Protestant church,
and then we have Buddishm which is also an ancient religion,
and they have their rights;
and they have the Cheondoism the Cheondogyo,
which is traditional to the Korean culture.
But our government doesn't allow new religions
like Scientology or Jehovah's Witnesses,
religions that, in many cases are politically influenced,
or carry a heavy weight in cultural invasion,
rather than just pure philosophy,
are not tolerated in the DPRK.
Inside a state like this,
competitors are not allowed.
Any religion that could work there
should be submitted to the state.
Therefore,
if any political idea that differs from that of the regime
or any suspicion
that you are not loyal to the regime is punished,
I don't see why religion should be any different.
As you know, freedom of cult dictates
that beliefs cannot be imposed.
Everybody has the right and the freedom to be a believer or not.
The Westerners appear to be very virtuous
however they have malice.
They think theirs is religion,
but not ours.
It's contradictory
that now they speak about our religion in this manner.
After all, they brought Christianism to North Korea.
This church
was built for this purpose with the blessing of Pope John Paul II.
Our religions were removed when the Juche ideology was built.
But there is a church in Pyongyang
where the regime can assure the other countries
that we have freedom of religion.
But it's just propaganda, for foreigners,
not a real church.
Whoy did you not give communion?
We can give communion
but today the priest wasn't available.
That's why we have celebrated a mass without Eucharist.
Because, he's not the priest?
-It's a lie. There's no freedom of thought,
and there's absolutely no freedom of religion.
And the fact that they've made these fake churches
there to try to give that illusion... it's a lie.
And North Koreans that have escaped
who are Christians will tell you it is a lie.
Even though they have these...
it's just a fake, pretend thing.
I should have guessed something was wrong:
this was the only place in North Korea
where people did not wear the pin of the leader.
It was also surprising that everybody sang so well.
Some of my prisoners were imprisoned
because they were opposed to the Kim Il-sung system
but a lot of them were imprisoned
because they interacted with Christianity,
or contacted someone in South Korea.
Kenneth Bae was sentenced in April to 15 years in
a labour camp for what the regime calls
'hostile acts to bring down the government'.
Wonderful, we have a freedom of Christianity
but if you try to bring bibles to our country you are a criminal.
Any contradiction do you see?
There are some people in Christianity, like in many religions,
that are crazy:
they believe God sent them for a mission
and that they can go, you know,
and evangelize and bring the word of Jesus,
according to them, to all the countries in the world.
This doesn't sound like a very smart move.
Again, we don't care about what move!
We don't care about what USA thinks!
We continue our revolution.
When will you understand that in this country
we don't care how many sanctions or how much pressure;
we don't live for the others we live for ourselves, okay?
So, understand that
no matter how much pressure no matter how much bad publicity,
we do as we believe.
He is a criminal he entered illegally in the country,
he tried to undermine our system, so he was judged and sentenced.
And now it's his time to pay that sentence.
That's why we don't release him.
That's why no matter what they offer us,
we are not going to release that person.
-Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller, two Americans
who have held in North Korea,
stunning news this morning.
Out of nowhere, they are coming home.
So I just want to say thank you all for supporting me, lifting me up,
and not forgetting me.
At the same time also not forgetting the people of North Korea.
(Music)
There are some stores where people can buy with local currency
and some stores where they use hard currency.
And, this one?
In this one we use hard currency.
And how do North Koreans get hard currency?
Many ways, for instance,
we go abroad
and when we work in the embassies
we receive our salaries in hard currency.
But it seems that this is more aimed
for the local people than for the tourists...
Why?
Lots of tourists also visit.
-Around the time of the collapse
of the Soviet Block, North Korea went into something
of a downward spiral.
They were getting a lot of aid from the former Soviet Union.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union
the trade between Russia and North Korea
dramatically reduced.
-I think the first thing that happened
is they ran short of energy, and a lot of the factories closed.
And when the factories closed they had no money
to buy raw ingredients.
The socialist economic system of North Korea collapsed.
It was a system wherein the government
would provide the people a stipend and food rations
but when the North Korean economy fell, it ceased to be sustainable.
-They got hungry, productivity went down, down, down,
and the economy really went into a death spiral.
-Very large numbers of people from the 1990s
have starved to death as a result of the inadequacy
of the response of the government and authorities
in North Korea to what they call 'the Arduous March',
the great famine of the 1990s.
-People started with their own ingenuity to find ways
to make money.
They started informal markets, which were mostly illegal,
but the thing was they had to feed themselves.
What about this critic that says
there is an underground capitalist
or individually driven economy?
No, not at all.
For instance, you can see many posts in the street
selling ice cream, selling water.
It's a sub-branch of one of our restaurants,
under one of our ministries.
The problem is that people don't ask.
They just take the picture and start to speculate and invent,
and specially use for propaganda against the country,
to try to make us look like we have a double standard
that on one hand we say we are socialist or communist
but on the other we allow these kinds of shops in the street
selling ice cream. Well, all of them are state-owned.
-Kim Jong-il said repeatedly markets breed egotism
and egotism is the death of socialism.
He saw that correctly.
And when the food situation improved a little,
they tried to close the markets.
But they couldn't close the markets because
people had started thinking for themselves.
I never saw any signs of a black market economy
despite the numerous reports that claim that the country depends on it.
This cooperative farm was built in the 1950's
but has been recently restored.
In all our farms we follow the Juche principle
that we must be self-sufficient.
When Kim Jong-un suddenly became the leader of the country,
he was surrounded by his father's officials,
who were very old people
with their ideas of how the country should be run.
-The next story is not for the weak of stomach.
A Chinese newspaper says the uncle of North Korean
leader Kim Jong-un was eaten alive by a pack
of ravenous dogs during his execution last year.
The paper says Kim and his brother observed
the one-hour ordeal, along with about
300 other officials.
-He was executed in a very... unusual way.
He was dragged out of the front row
of the Politburo and taken off to a show trial
before a military tribunal.
Which constantly interrupted and denounced him,
and he was dead within four days.
-The story about Jang Song-thaek being fed to the dogs
was actually started by a Chinese microblogger
who kind of wrote it as a joke, and then people
repeated it and it became... you know,
sort of this urban legend that most people believe.
There's no evidence that Jang Song-thaek was fed to the dogs.
-Well, it's incredible.
The sad part is
that many people found it believable.
To the outside world the message is 'I am in charge.
Don't mistake that anybody else'...
because for many months before his execution,
people thought that he was the number two in power.
It was kind of common expectation,
that in a few years' time, Kim Jong-un would remove
dignitaries and top officials from his father's era,
and would replace them with young or at least different people.
This is exactly what happened.
Nobody thought that it would happen so fast
and in such a dramatic manner.
Sometimes it's the king who gets killed,
but more frequently it's the regent.
A wicked political careerist, trickster and traitor of all ages,
Jang Song-thaek was condemned
in the name of the Revolution and the People.
Until then, we thought of him as a patriot,
as the most loyal person to our Generalissimo.
That's why all the Korean people were shocked
at this news.
So we thought that he would be near our Marshal,
assist him in many affairs,
but, it was so sudden for us to find out his treachery.
It's not only treachery to our Generalissimo
to our Marshal Kim Jong-un,
it's treachery to the whole Korean people.
So that's why we couldn't be patient about it.
-Were you angry? -Yes, of course.
-Everybody? -Everybody.
When we went to the North Korean TV to get archive footage,
they told us they needed to erase
the traitor Jang Song-thaek first.
(Cheering/Applause)
Some people have mentioned that he was corrupted by the Chinese.
Have you heard about this?
-Yeah, I think that's the indirect accusation.
-The uncle is believed to be an advocate
of Chinese style reform.
His uncle has been very instrumental in pursuing
relations with China, including trade
and economic ties with China.
When Mao died the Chinese Government made a huge decision,
they reformed the old system and tried something new.
A major feature of the new system was
to introduce more market based mechanism into the old system.
China gradually realized that private economy
is very important for China.
China also made this reform that communist society countries
can allow the private economy to serve for these countries.
China changed!
Mao was betrayed by their own comrades!
Stalin was betrayed by their own comrades!
Vietnam, a country that suffered so much
under U.S. invasion is now a full capitalist country!
So, could it happen tomorrow to North Korea? Yes.
They are humans also.
One day, the poison of capitalism could enter this country,
in 50 or 100 years.
(Clicking)
We are going to ask Alejandro: how come
a Coca-Cola sign got into North Korea?
Oh, really?
Oh!
Yes, yes.
This has an easy explanation.
Normally, we don't have enough fridges by national production,
so we import them from China.
And then, from China it comes already branded like that.
Someone like that is always useful. It is such a closed regime,
that now have found someone
who facilitates for them coming in and out.
Obviously there is money involved,
he facilitates the entrance of hard currency...
We still have many problems.
We know that.
We are working on that I myself play my role,
to try to improve it by bringing more foreign investment,
bringing more technology,
and teaching our state companies
how to be more efficient.
So we are at the University,
which seems brand new.
Everything is just like out of the box.
And curiously, all of the computers are Hewlett-Packard.
-And where did you buy this? -That's a secret.
(Laughing)
That's a secret.
Otherwise Americans will know how we go around the blockade.
The blockade is useless.
Useless embargo.
He is a fantastic tool for propaganda.
He is a Westerner who goes there,
who puts on his uniform with all his medals,
and he sings to Kim Jong-il,
he sings to Kim Il-sung,
And he knows it by heart...
He's a great asset!
You know, I have been living during the times of the Arduous March.
I came to the Motherland, I know
what was our situation back then, in the '90s.
So hard,
we didn't have anything.
But, after witnessing the transformation of the Republic
under our Marshal Kim Jong-un,
I was so surprised.
These centres, our Republic are becoming the envy of the world.
So if we show them in DPRK,
how is this country,
they want to live like in DPRK.
When I go to talk to the universities, in Spain,
many times to give a conference,
more than 500 people,
600 people come to hear me
and then I talk.
Why and how we develop our socialist system.
And they become very interested and followers
of our great leaders.
So we could say that DPRK
is becoming the centre of the world.
You are really lucky!
(Laughing)
He dresses as Superman, he acts like Superman,
he believes he is Superman, but he isn't.
That's it. That's Alejandro.
(Music)
(Speaking Korean)
-Today he made it. -Beautiful.
-Thank you.
-Very nice.
(Music)
I still have so many questions...
Who benefits from the status quo?
What will the future bring for these people?
And again where is the money coming from?
(Music)
-People always ask me why North Korea still exists,
and I think it exists because nobody wants it to collapse.
The Chinese keep it going because they like
having a communist ally buffer zone on their border.
The Chinese policy consists of maintaining
its complicated North Korean ally alive.
-Making North Korea reliant on China helps China keep
that Korea card in their hands.
America, you need me to deal with North Korea.
China's main priority is the development of its country
the last thing they need is conflict.
-It's also destabilizing for China to be worrying
about a nuclear North Korea.
The Chinese do not want
the regime to fall,
because they don't want to have American soldiers at their border.
-I believe that they fear that having a unified Korea
will harm China.
But it won't.
It will actually be a benefit to China.
Because they won't have to worry about
this dictatorship that they're constantly having to bail out,
that who knows what Kim Jong-un is going to do.
So I think the Chinese Government have lots of frustration
about what is going on in North Korea.
-And, in a way, that's part of the China-US kind of rivalry
in the region.
It's not ready to give this away we want something in return.
China is the enemy of the United States.
And what the U.S. want is obviously
to maintain its position in Asia and that part of the Pacific,
and not to have their power contested.
United States is probably the only pro-unification country.
But I would not bet on that because if the country is unified
it would be difficult to justify
the presence of the U.S. forces in Korea.
The United States can continue to sell weapons
to South Korea and to Japan.
Russia doesn't want a unified Korea,
which would strengthen the American position in the region.
Let's assume a unified Korea will be essentially
an enlarged version of South Korea.
-The Japanese keep it going because they are afraid
of the economic and military power of a united Korea.
South Korea doesn't want unification
because they'll have to pay for it.
And it's going to be absolutely, unbelievably expensive.
-If the North Korean regime collapses,
you're talking about the billions of dollars it's going to cost
the South Korean economy.
And it kind of scares South Koreans.
But the longer they're separated, the longer
this continues, the greater that cost is going to be.
Of all the major international players,
the majority wants status quo.
-I think the only ones who really want it
to collapse are the North Korean people.
They do want it to collapse.
But they don't have much say in the matter.
-You're talking here about 23 million people
who are suffering and have suffered for 65 years
and more grievous crimes against humanity.
The victims of the status quo are the vast majority
of the North Koreans
however who does care about them?
Nobody.
(Music)
Propaganda serves as a diversion from the truth,
we are all victims of propaganda. The Governments and the Media
are constantly submitting us to manipulation
and the only tool we have against it is information.
But the truth is...
It's hard to tell what is the truth, and I don't think we'll ever know.
But whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not,
we are all part of the game.
North Korea is indescribable
no humans deserve to be oppressed
just because of their birthplace.
We need to focus less on the regime
and more on the people who are being forgotten.
One Young World,
we are the ones who will make them visible.
(News segments playing)
(Music)