The Lovers and the Despot

[projekktor id=’25524′]

The Lovers and the Despot is a documentary directed by Rob Cannan and Ross Adam. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival early this year.

THE LOVERS AND THE DESPOT tells the story of young, ambitious South Korean filmmaker Shin Sang-ok and actress Choi Eun-hee, who met and fell in love in 1950s post-war Korea. In the 70s, after reaching the top of Korean society following a string of successful films, Choi was kidnapped in Hong Kong by North Korean agents and taken to meet Kim Jong-il. While searching for Choi, Shin also was kidnapped, and following five years of imprisonment, the couple was reunited in North Korea by the movie-obsessed Kim, who declared them his personal filmmakers. Choi and Shin planned their escape, but not before producing 17 feature films for the dictator and gaining his trust in the process.

“Finding and securing a great story is one thing,” the directors say, “but only one of our three main characters was still alive and we had only scant picture archive to represent any of them, so telling it was initially a huge challenge (alongside, of course, all the difficulties in raising a budget that a multi-lingual, expansive, internationally set narrative like this requires). We tried making contact with both North Korean representatives and the CIA, who we knew had extensively debriefed Shin and Choi after their escape, but both proved equally touchy. The former were unwilling to discuss anything involving the now highly taboo names of Shin and Choi and the latter wouldn’t even confirm or deny the existence of this obviously still classified case.”

The Lovers and the Despot is rated PG.