Yodok Stories: Shedding light on the plight of North Koreans

Stories that have come out of North Korea are sometimes so shocking, they're hard to believe.

News reports detail gruesome stories of torture, public executions, infanticide, malnutrition, and other horrors. In addition, there's mass starvation, which is forcing people into acts of desperation such as cannibalism. I also once read how human feces are being used to compensate for the lack of fertilizer (a health hazard).

After watching a documentary about North Koreans trying to escape into China at the Vancouver Asian Film Festival a few years ago, I was haunted by footage smuggled out of the totalitarian state.

Dirty, starving children were trying to pick sesame seeds out of the mud so they could eat them while depressed-looking adults looked on. The families trying to escape went to great lengths and risked their lives as they attempted to reach Japanese embassies in China for help. It made me wonder about all the possible footage that, and people who, never made it out of the country. Human rights activists from around the world also put themselves at risk in attempting to help these people reach freedom.

I also saw Tiger Spirit at the 2008 Whistler Film Festival, which followed South Koreans seeking to reunite with family members trapped in North Korea (many whom they hadn't seen for almost a lifetime).

The documentary Yodok Stories, presented at DOXA in conjunction with ExplorASIAN  (as part of Asian Heritage Month) on Sunday (May 24, 6:30 p.m.) at the Pacific Cinémathí¨que (1131 Howe Street), will offer more views into the rigidly controlled state that has tried to prevent anyone from knowing the truth about what really goes on inside its borders.

Director Andrzej Fidyk worked with North Korean defector Jung Sung San to create a musical based on the stories of seven prisoners and guards from the Yodok concentration camp. Mass executions, torture, and other forms of suffering are all part of the tales.

Hopefully films like these will help give a voice to people who have been unable to speak and raise greater awareness, activism, and international aid.