Athens International Film Festival
aiff

The Lovers and the Despot

28/9/2016, 17:45, Ideal

The following story could have been a product of the most insane imagination, if it wasn’t absolutely true: in the 1970s, an acclaimed South Korean director and the country’s most famous star were kidnapped by their number one fan, none other than the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Il. You won’t believe it until you see it.

Copy of The lovers and the despot

Choi is a movie star and Shin a renowned director from South Korea. Their well-publicized romance is over, but Kim Jong-il, the infamous North Korean dictator, has other plans for them. He kidnaps them and forces them to work in North Korea, in a bid to elevate the artistic and commercial status of his country’s film industry.

How can identity and the conditions of production of an artistic creation influence the artistic result and our attitude towards it? Is it possible for an artist to create freely within a despotic regime? These are only a few of the questions that directors Ross Adam and Robert Cannan attempt to answer in this thriller-style documentary which presents an incredible, almost surrealistic, but absolutely true story through interviews and secret recordings. Official selection for the Sundance Film Festival. G.B.

Directors: Rob Cannan, Ross Adam
Screenwriters: Rob Cannan, Ross Adam
Music: Nathan Halpern
Editor: Jim Hession
Featuring: Paul Courtenay Hyu

UK | 2016 | Color | DCP | 98' | Korean, Japanese, English



    Publication date: 2016-09-11 19:45:38

    Stranger than Fiction

    Stranger than Fiction

    Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America

    Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race & America

    The African-American pianist Daryl Davis, who has performed with legendary artists like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, has a dream. For the last twenty years he goes around the United States, befriending high-ranking Ku Klux Klan members, in the belief that he will manage to change their views. Will he be able, though, to convince black activists of his weird hobby, when they watch as their brothers are getting shot at in the streets by members of the police force? An unbelievable true story that emphatically reminds us how complex human nature can really be.

    Check it

    Check it

    Hunted down, beaten down, shot at. The ghetto streets in the US capital were the most hostile to the LGBTQ community until a handful of gay and trans people decide to take matters into their own hands. Armed and dangerous, yet stylish and aglitter, the "Check It" gang has now more than 200 members and goes out to the streets of Washington to teach a lesson to any homophobic little bastard. Is this gang enough for its members to have a claim on a better life, though?

    Dancer

    Dancer

    When ballet becomes rock 'n' roll: Sergei Polunin, who dazzled us in the viral video for "Take Me to Church", became the enfant terrible of the ballet world when he abandoned his position as lead soloist twice, rebelling against the classical dance status quo. How high is the price you pay for perfection?

    David Lynch: The Art Life

    David Lynch: The Art Life

    With the help of semi-lit underground rooms, cigarette smoke, violent colour strokes onto white canvasses and a vintage microphone, David Lynch revisits his past and the otherworldly experiences that shaped him as an artist. In an almost dream-like documentary he could have shot himself, the Festival's favourite director allows us to listen to his personal stories, which are far weirder than his films. Now, it's dark...

    De Palma

    De Palma

    For many years, critics loved to hate him, the audiences adored him and his films became the definition of a guilty pleasure. Five decades after the beginning of his career, Hitchcock's most loyal follower and the master of some of the most skillful films ever created reveals himself (holding nothing back) in front of the camera of two famous fans of his: directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow.