Press releases
North Korea film: Amnesty releases 'The Other Interview'
Amnesty International has released “The Other Interview” today (Fri 6 Feb), a harrowing account of one woman’s escape from North Korea, to coincide with the UK cinema release of controversial Sony film, “The Interview”.
Sony Pictures had at one stage cancelled the release of “The Interview”, a comedy about the fictional attempted assassination of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, following a sustained cyber-attack in which private emails and files belonging to the company were hacked and released.
Amnesty’s film “The Other Interview” features the story of a young North Korean woman Park Ji-hyun. In a powerful first-person account she explains how she fled starvation in North Korea, before being trafficked into China where she was sold to a farmer and forced to work like a slave.
Ji-hyun gave birth to the farmer’s son, but was separated from him when she was reported to the Chinese authorities for having fled North Korea, and forcibly returned. She was then sent to one of North Korea’s hellish prison camps where she faced starvation and torture. She eventually escaped.
Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:
“This is the other film North Korea really doesn’t want you to see, and with good reason.“People in North Korea are subjected to an existence beyond nightmares. The population is ruled by fear with a network of prison camps a constant spectre for those who dare step out of line.“Thousands of people in the camps are worked to death, starved to death, beaten to death. Some are sent there just for knowing someone who has fallen out of favour.“Amnesty is 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.”