Screening & Discussion: Yodok Stories
VIEW EVENT DETAILSToday, more than 200,000 men, women and children are locked up in North Korea's concentration camps. Few survive the many years in the camps, but the population is kept stable by a steady influx of new persons considered to be "class enemies."
Yodok Stories follows a 36-year-old North Korean defector, Jung Sung San, who has managed to escape through China to South Korea. He is one out of nine people who have escaped the camps and managed to flee to safety in Seoul. In Seoul, he organizes a controversial play about his experiences as prisoner in the concentration camp Yodok in North Korea. He inspires eight other refugees to recreate the past, and together they work to develop a musical about the concentration camps.
Despite death treats and many obstacles, the musical becomes a tour de force for this ensemble of refugees. For them, a possibility opens to talk about their experiences and inspire others to protest the existence of the camps.
Yodok Stories is a documentary film directed by Pole Andrzej Fidyk and produced by Torstein Grude.
Partial funding for this series has been provided by Lisa B. Barry.
Event Details
Asia Society Washington, The Cinnabar Room, Whittemore House, 2nd Flr., 1526 New Hampshire Ave, NW