Following the temporary (?) cancellation of The Interview, Amnesty International has revealed that they, too, have a North Korea-themed movie coming up.
It’s “The film North Korea doesn’t want you to see,” and it’s not Seth Rogen’s The Interview. And it’s definitely not a comedy.
Over the past few weeks, Hollywood has found itself in a state of chaos — first because an anonymous hacking group began to release private information and emails from Sony employees, and then because movie theaters were threatened with 9/11-style attacks if they released the North Korea satire film The Interview.
Sony decided to give into the terrorists’ demands and cancel the movie, sparking outrage and indignation from almost everyone — including President Obama and George R.R. Martin.
Although Sony has backtracked spectacularly, first placing the blame on the movie theaters and since claiming that the movie will indeed be released, the point still stands: we should not censor the media out of fear, especially not when they critically examine (however humorously) a brutal dictatorship.
So says Amnesty International, who has made a powerful statement against censorship (and North Korea) with this trailer for The Other Interview, a documentary which exposes the hellish existence of North Korean slaves:
The Other Interview is about North Korean woman Park Ji-hyu, “who fled starvation only to be trafficked into China where she was sold to a farmer and forced to work as a slave before giving birth to his son.”
Amnesty International U.K. Director Kate Allen states in a press release, “Sony has every right to make a comedy about North Korea. We should all be worried when blackmail, threats and the hacking of private data are being used to censor and silence.”
While some people claim that The Interview was done in bad taste, it has nonetheless raised awareness about North Korea, and helps to expose the horrible things that are happening there.
“Thousands of people in [concentration] camps are worked to death, starved to death, beaten to death,” Allen reminds us. “Some are sent there just for knowing someone who has fallen out of favour.”
Amnesty International is now releasing The Other Interview, “so that people all over the world can hear first-hand how people in North Korea are suffering appallingly at the hands of Kim Jong-un and his officials. They don’t want you to see it, which is precisely why you should.”
“Watch this film because they don’t want you to,” the trailer reminds us, and we definitely will. We think it’s great that Amnesty International is using the Sony media circus to raise awareness for this serious human rights issue.
The full documentary will be released in January 2015.
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