Anna Broinowski - Aim High in Creation! - A One-of-a-Kind Journey Inside North Korea's Propaganda Machine

“We are very grateful to you for having us,” I say to Ms. K’s boss, trying as discreetly as possible to nudge a duty-free bag of Johnnie Walker and SK-II Essential Power Cream under the table towards him, with my boot. Maybe I’m being too discreet: Ms. K’s boss studies me slowly descending in my chair with cool fascination, as if I’ve developed a nervous tic. Perhaps he thinks this is a form of Australian business etiquette and is waiting for it to pass. I bend down and shove the bag hard, until it collides with his loafer.

When I pop up again, he’s still smiling, but his eyes are cold. “Comrade K has worn out her shoe leather running around showing you things,” he says. “It would take a lot of work to make your film possible.”

Lizzette smiles: “Should you invite us back, our investors will finance our trip at the appropriate level.”

Ms. K’s boss chuckles, and slowly looks us up and down. “I’m surprised you’re awake,” he leers. “I hear you were up all night, watching our films.”

I gulp. After my time in Seoul, I am keenly aware that the Koreans, unlike the Japanese, value honesty over politeness. If Ms. K’s boss has seen footage of us bouncing on our beds and mocking North Korea’s greatest directors, he won’t appreciate a lie. I hold his bloodshot gaze: “We watched as many as we could but didn’t finish them. I would love to take them to Australia and give them the attention they deserve.”

Something like relief flickers in Ms. K’s eyes, and her boss turns solemn: “We have a saying, in our country: eight hundred ryang of gold will buy a house, and one thousand ryang a neighbour, but even one thousand ryang cannot buy a comrade. Your wife and children can be with you in times of peace, but only your comrades can share life and death with you in times of adversity.”

We nod and stay silent. That’s one thing the Koreans do share with the Japanese: important pronouncements are usually preceded by a heavily symbolic aphorism.

“The workers of the Pyongyang Film Studio and Korfilm support your project,” Ms. K’s boss continues. “Comrade K tells me it will forge a positive bond between our countries. I am sure she will do everything necessary to make sure it is a success.”

Ms. K turns slightly pale. Her boss slaps the table. “Next time, let’s make it a heavier envelope!” he barks. And before we can respond, he’s swept out the door, with the duty-free bags, the euros, and his sidekick in tow. Ms. K, Lizzette and I look at each other, stunned. We’re going to make a movie.

Trust nurtures People.

When people want to celebrate something in Pyongyang, they go to a funfair. These places are featured in horror-themed galleries on the web: Cool Things in Random Places shows the Kaeson Youth Park to be an abandoned wasteland with mangled bumper cars, a broken Ferris wheel, and rotting roller-coasters frozen on their tracks. The very idea of a “North Korean funfair” seems oxymoronic—until you go to one.

Driving through the twilight to the Kaeson Youth Park, we’re high on beer and relief. Ms. K has secured a permit letting us out after curfew, and the tension between us has been replaced by warm camaraderie—and excitement. Now we’re making a film together, we’re a team. Ms. K sits with Nick in the front of the van, chatting happily about their North Korean rom-com Comrade Kim Goes Flying . The movie has just been invited to the Toronto Film Festival. The last time a North Korean film screened in the West was 2007, when the coming-of-age drama A Schoolgirl’s Diary , which Kim Jong Il script-edited, played in Paris. It was labeled “un film intéressant et… décalé [offbeat],” and quickly forgotten. The Toronto invite is a huge honour for Comrade Kim’s cast and crew—despite the fact they won’t be allowed to attend. It’s also made Nick an even bigger celebrity in Pyongyang. Now, a new North Korean script is doing the rounds, about how Nick and Ms. K got Comrade Kim made. Nick asks Ms. K what his character should be called. He likes the sound of “Eddie.”

“No! Too casual,” admonishes Ms. K, always protective of Nick.

She prefers the more dignified “Robert.”

Eun and Lizzette sit behind me, talking about men. Lizzette has survived two marriages, both of which she ended amicably to preserve a stable environment for her kids. Eun, gorgeous, privileged, and single, is torn between two boyfriends. She defers to Lizzette’s experience, hungry for advice: “One of them is handsome but boring. He’s in the country doing farm work with his science brigade, so I’m dating the other one. He is successful, already a Party member. But he is too short. I can’t decide.”

Lizzette suggests Eun visualise her ideal husband, then see if either man fits.

“I guess I would first marry a Party official, then a soldier, then a university graduate,” Eun sighs. “If he is tall and handsome, that’s a bonus. For men, it’s simple: they just go for someone pretty.”

Eun’s got prettiness in the bag, Lizzette reassures her. She can go with whomever she likes.

Eun takes this in. Then she leans close and whispers: “The problem is, the scientist always laughs at my jokes. The Party official expects me to laugh at his jokes, but he is not funny.”

I tell Eun that a man who finds you funny without being threatened is a precious thing. The fact the scientist is also a hottie should seal the deal: a shared sense of humour will take any marriage a long way; there’s no reason why it can’t be the woman driving the laughs.

Eun nods thoughtfully, weighing up a future of guaranteed luxury as a Party official’s wife against good sex in a home where she calls the shots. Then she arches gracefully back in her seat, content: “I still have time. I’m only twenty-six. We don’t have to get married until at least thirty-one.”

Lizzette shows Eun photos of her daughter, the same age as Eun—and Eun listens, riveted, to glittering stories of the daughter’s peripatetic career as a fashion designer and chef. I absorb the friendly chatter around me and curse myself for having been so paranoid. The cameras on Floor Five are obviously a myth: our North Korean minders were never out to get us. The hostility I sensed was all inside my head. Ms. K may be daunted by the work she has to do for our film, but she’s always been behind it, just as Nick said. And Eun’s not aloof, she’s distracted: by boys. These dignified, generous people, so often demonised as brainwashed idiots by the West, have decided they can trust us. Now we must show them they’re right.

Outside, the sunset suffuses the pale avenues with a soft pink glow. Everything is rosy, including my gaze: the city looks as innocent as a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. In front of the Grand People’s Study House, little boys shriek with delight as they chase a soccer ball around roller-skating girls. Under poplars by the river, people squat over sizzling barbeques, drinking beer. On the steps of a postcard-perfect temple, a family takes happy snaps, their toddler twins in pride of place at the front, wearing lacy white socks. My three-day materialism detox has flushed out my cynicism: I feel like an anthropologist who has stumbled upon a unique and undiscovered tribe. Remove the gulags and Kims from the equation and Pyongyang is how the West might have evolved if we too had never had the web, video games, fast food, globalisation, beer barns, or crystal meth.

I don’t care what they will say back home: I’ve fallen in love with this city. Its fluttering flags, its laughing children, its enthusiastic slogans fill me with joy. This is the set for my next film: a month from now, I’ll be capturing it with the best camera our budget can buy and sharing its strange beauty with the world. Maybe I’m just deliriously happy I’ve been allowed to come back—but Pyongyang is beautiful to me. I find its old technology nostalgic, its lack of commercialism appealing. I like the fact that even in this rigidly totalitarian nation, people have found ways to have fun—and what they’ve found is more humane than the conversation-stopping gadgets back home. I like that they meet in parks to sing songs, get drunk, and swap stories, to talk to each other. And I love the fact that when people in Pyongyang want to see a movie, they still go to the cinema, to see films that are actually shot on film.