On Friday 20 November, the Frontline Club hosted a premiere screening of the documentary I Am Sun Mu, a remarkable insight into the life and work of North Korean defector and political pop artist Sun Mu. The film follows Sun Mu as he prepares for his first solo exhibition in Beijing in 2014 while trying to remain hidden from the Chinese authorities – a feat that proves more challenging than he, or the filmmaker, had anticipated. The screening was followed by a Q&A session with director Adam Sjöberg.
The documentary is peppered with Sun Mu’s work, from rosy-cheeked North and South Korean children running through a pastel-lit field to a grotesque portrait of Kim Jong Il posing in a bubblegum pink tracksuit. The artist recalls life under the regime, and the subsequent paranoia of living in hiding, over bold animation sequences that become an essential part of the storytelling process.

#I AM SUN MU by #AdamSjöberg screened @frontlineclub! Powerful Documentary abt North Korean defector turned artist. pic.twitter.com/546OhzIxmf

— Mica Shibata (@Micabubby) November 21, 2015

Sjöberg began the discussion by answering a question on how he originally approached Sun Mu, particularly given the artist’s objection to revealing his true identity in fear that it would endanger the family that he left behind in North Korea over a decade ago.

Sjöberg explained that he met Sun Mu through the organisation Liberty in North Korea. “Over a relatively short amount of time, he grew to trust me… That was in 2013, and it was about a year later that I found the hook to pin the story to, which was the exhibit in Beijing.”

“As far as I know, no other North Korean has had a solo exhibit in Beijing that was not sanctioned by the North Korean government. So going into this exhibit, we already knew that it was going to be a relatively historic moment for North Koreans.”

Sjöberg later commented on the Korean conflict, saying that working with Sun Mu “helped solidify for me that change is going to happen on the peninsula… There’s a lot to overcome, but change is going to happen by people thinking differently about this issue and not toeing the party line because clearly that hasn’t been working for 60 years.”He said: “I was really interested in Sun Mu as a person because he talks about his divided heart. He creates images that are offensive to South Koreans as well. He’s creating images both of hope, but also images that are supposed to make you feel conflicted.”

When asked about how the animated sequences in the film were incorporated into the film, Sjöberg said: “Very early on, I had the idea of using animation to bring his paintings to life. My animator actually flew to Seoul and worked with Sun Mu to create the plates. The sketches were all inspired by actual sketches that we had him recreate for us, frame by frame.”

One audience member asked Sjöberg if he had been worried about footage from the exhibition being confiscated by Chinese authorities.

He responded saying that the curator from Yuan Art Museum, where the exhibition was being held, had actually expected it to be shut down by the authorities within 48 hours. “It was always known that this was not going to be an exhibit that lasted very long.”

Sjöberg also added that, “when the police started showing up, it became clear that things were a lot more serious than we thought. We had to scramble to make do, and be as safe as we could.”

Within hours of the exhibit being shut down by Chinese authorities, Sun Mu left the country. However, his work is yet to be returned to his studio in South Korea.

Sjöberg explained: “The concern is, will they make it out of China. That was his livelihood for the next year and a half. Luckily Liberty in North Korea has been great in supporting him, but that was an enormous body of work that is stuck in limbo.”

Information about I Am Sun Mu and upcoming screenings can be found on the film’s website and Twitter page.

On Thursday 2 July, Hyeonseo Lee joined an audience at the Frontline Club for a discussion on her experiences as a North Korean defector. Lee, an international campaigner for North Korean human rights and refugee issues, was joined in conversation by author Paul French.

One day after dinner, seventeen-year-old Lee told her parents that she was going to visit a neighbour. “Make sure you’re home before dark,” her mother said at the door. She promised not to be back late and turned to leave her house forever.

The young Lee headed for the neon lights of China that had long beckoned her from across the border. Here she discovered the inevitable loneliness of life as a fugitive, constantly terrified of being uncovered and drifting from her sense of self with every false name she adopted.

“I had to change my name constantly to protect my identity, so I became the girl with seven names,” she said at the start of the talk.

French, an analyst and commentator on Asia, invited Lee to elaborate on points she had mentioned in her memoir The Girl with Seven Names.

He asked about the recurrent theme of superstition, which punctuates much of the book: “Your mother takes you several times to see a fortune teller to try and work out everything from whether or not this boy will be a good marriage or bad marriage, to if you’re going to leave the country what day should you go on.”

French said he was interested in understanding the role of superstition in an atheistic, communist regime.

Lee responded: “People have nothing to rely on so they really, severely rely on the fortune teller,” she laughed. “I even went to see a fortune teller a few months ago.”

As a young girl, a fortune teller predicted that Lee would escape from North Korea, stating, “you will eat the foreign country rice.” Yet even then she only imagined that she would live in a different area of the country – never abroad. She said that the reason North Korea is a “collapsed country” is because Kim Jong-Il believed his own fortune teller too much.

The conversation moved onto the perceived supremacy of the Kim dynasty. Lee admitted that she always believed the leaders to be Gods: “We didn’t consider them as normal human beings” she said. “Until I was fourteen, I thought Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il don’t go to the bathroom and that they killed the enemies when they were five or six years old.”

She expressed amazement at her previous naivety, but defended her beliefs and those still held by her compatriots: “From the moment you are born you are brainwashed severely, even though it’s all a lie, if you hear it every day, every minute, it becomes the truth.”

When Kim Jong-il died, everyone knew that they had to cry or risk dangerous consequences, and “many people really cried with their hearts.” Yet some citizens were sent to prison camps for crying too little, and others for crying too much and appearing insincere.

As well as growing up to a drumbeat of propaganda asserting the Kim family’s godly status, Lee also learned from an early age not to trust anyone. Her mother used to tell her that ‘the walls have ears and the fields have eyes,’ and politics was very rarely spoken about at home.

“Even husband and wife can’t trust each other,” she said.

Her mother was spied on for six years by someone she considered to be her best friend. One day, sick with guilt, the woman spy admitted that she had been reporting to the government on all her actions. Lee said that this kind of betrayal was “everyone’s experience in North Korea.”

Spying and duplicity extended beyond the borders of her country and into China, where new ‘friends’ reported her to the police as a North Korean defector. Lee was forced to lie to her roommate in Shanghai, who years later texted her saying, “I didn’t know you were a defector – I just saw your Ted Talk!”

Lee now lives in Seoul with her mother and brother, whom she helped escape North Korea thirteen years after her own flight. She is married to an American man called Brian.

“My mum was the most brainwashed woman. When I introduced my boyfriend to her she really treated him as an ‘American bastard’. In North Korea, we didn’t learn that Americans were human beings, we just had one word: American-bastards.”

Growing up in North Korea, she was taught that all men from the US had long noses and dressed in military clothes, while the British were always portrayed as gentlemen in tall black hats and capes. Relieved, she said that her mother now accepts the “American-bastard” as a son.

Click here for more information on The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story.

Hyeonseo Lee was just seventeen when she fled North Korea. She found herself in China, alone and with no identity. Her mother’s first words over the telephone to her lost daughter were “Don’t come back”.

In her memoir The Girl with Seven Names, Lee recounts her life inside the secretive and brutal communist regime: the ‘self-criticism’ classes in primary school; forcibly joining the Youth Corps aged nine; and witnessing public executions of people who had not mourned enough for the death of Kim Il-Sung. She describes her escape and brave efforts to persuade her mother and brother to join her.

We are pleased to welcome Hyeonseo Lee to the Frontline Club to share her insight into growing up North Korea, the story of her escape and how she went on to rebuild her life and discover her identity. She will be talking to Paul French, an author and a widely published analyst and commentator on Asia, Asian politics and current affairs. He is author of North Korea: State of Paranoia and the international bestseller Midnight in Peking.

Hyeonseo Lee lived in North Korea until her escape in 1997. She arrived in Seoul in 2008, where she currently lives, and has recently graduated from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. As a student, she was a Young Leader at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a journalist at the Ministry for Unification and a selected member of the ‘English for the Future’ programme at the British Embassy in Seoul. She is an international campaigner for North Korean human rights and refugee issues and speaks on the subject all over the world, including at the UN and the Oslo Freedom Forum.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

As the leadership in North Korea changes and Kim Jong-un takes the helm, a man who goes by the name of Dragon smuggles North Korean defectors across borders. His latest trip with two women, Sook-Ja and Yong-hee, takes an unexpected turn when they are left stranded in China. This is only the beginning of an extraordinary 5,000 km journey. Their story reflects the reality of tens of thousands of North Koreans currently in hiding in China.

Dragon sees himself as a human rights activist, whilst acknowledging that many people look poorly on brokers who charge defectors money for freedom. His work is illegal and his true motivations questionable, but many defectors come to him to seek an escape from China and a world of uncertainty. A North Korean defector himself, Dragon was once part of a commando unit that trained under then President Kim Jong-il. The experience has enabled him to assist hundreds of North Korean defectors.

Korean-Canadian filmmaker Ann Shin gains intimate access with these three individuals, taking the journey alongside them while filming undercover and navigating the risk of exposing the defectors and their guide. Beautifully shot, with a compelling high-stakes story, The Defector poses broad questions around human smuggling and the pursuit of freedom. The film has been selected for 20 international festivals and has been nominated for 7 awards, winning the Canadian Digi Awards and the FITC Awards.

Directed by Ann Shin
Duration: 71′
Year: 2014
www.thedefectormovie.com