The Defector: Escape from North Korea

Last updated
The Defector: Escape from North Korea
Directed byAnn Shin
Release date
  • 2012 (2012)
CountryCanada
LanguagesEnglish, Korean

The Defector: Escape from North Korea is a 2012 documentary film about North Korean defectors, directed by Korean-Canadian filmmaker Ann Shin. The film premiered at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and had its broadcast premiere on TVOntario on June 26. The film's release was accompanied by The Defector Interactive, an interactive documentary that uses a videogame-like approach to let the user find out about life in and escape from North Korea. [1] [2] [3] That the film opened at International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) of Amsterdam, [4] and went on to play at numerous of festivals, winning three Canadian Screen Awards: Best Documentary, Best Documentary Director and the Diversity Award. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam</span> Film festival

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sheffield DocFest</span> Documentary festival in Sheffield, England

Sheffield DocFest, is an international documentary festival and Industry Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England.

The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The 27th edition of the festival took place online throughout May and June 2020. In addition to the annual festival, Hot Docs owns and operates the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, administers multiple production funds, and runs year-round screening programs including Doc Soup and Hot Docs Showcase.

Paul Jay is a journalist, filmmaker, is the founder, editor-in-chief, and host of theAnalysis.news, a news analysis service. He was the founder, CEO and senior editor of The Real News Network (TRNN). Jay was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario and holds dual-citizenship with the United States. Jay is the nephew of screenwriter Ted Allan. A past chair of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus, the main organization of documentary filmmakers in Canada, Jay is the founding chair of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. He chaired the Hot Docs! board for its first five years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brett Gaylor</span> Canadian documentary filmmaker

Brett Gaylor is a Canadian documentary filmmaker living in Victoria, British Columbia. He grew up on Galiano Island, British Columbia. He was formerly the VP of Mozilla's Webmaker Program. His documentary, Do Not Track, explores privacy and the web economy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Light Productions</span> Documentary media production company

Northern Light Productions is a documentary film and museum media production company based in Boston, MA. Founded in 1982 by independent filmmaker Bestor Cram, the company is one of New England's premiere production organizations, creating a variety of work for museums, visitor centers, educational institutions, and television broadcast worldwide.

<i>RiP!: A Remix Manifesto</i> 2008 Canadian film

RiP!: A Remix Manifesto is a 2008 open-source documentary film about "the changing concept of copyright" directed by Brett Gaylor.

Kensington Communications is a Toronto-based production company that specializes in documentary films and documentary/factual television series. Founded in 1980 by president Robert Lang, Kensington Communications Inc. has produced over 250 productions from documentary series and films to performing arts and children's specials. Since 1998, Kensington has also been involved in multi-platform interactive projects for the web and mobile devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Lang (producer)</span> Canadian film producer, director, and writer

Robert Lang is a Canadian film producer, director, and writer. His career began in Montreal in the early 70s working on independent productions and at the National Film Board of Canada as a documentary film director and cinematographer. In 1980, he moved to Toronto, where he founded his own independent production company, Kensington Communications, to produce documentaries for television and non-theatrical markets. Since 1998, Lang has been involved in conceiving and producing interactive media for the Web and mobile devices.

<i>Antoine</i> (film) 2008 Canadian film

Antoine is a 2008 Canadian documentary film directed by Laura Bari. The film features a 5-year old blind boy named Antoine Houang, living in Montreal, Quebec. It tells the real and imaginary life of Antoine, a boy detective who runs, drives, makes decisions, hosts radio shows and adores simultaneous telephone conversations. Over the course of two years, he uses a mini-boom microphone to discover and capture the sounds surrounding him. In this manner he also co-created the soundtrack of the film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katerina Cizek</span> Canadian filmmaker and web documentarian

Katerina Cizek is a Canadian documentary director and a pioneer in digital documentaries. She is the Artistic Director, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab.

The Boxing Girls of Kabul is a 2012 Canadian documentary film directed by Ariel Nasr. The film follows young women boxers, under which Sadaf Rahimi, and their coach Sabir Sharifi at Afghanistan’s female boxing academy, as these athletes face harassment and threats in their efforts to represent their country in international competition and attempt to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Games.

<i>Highrise</i> (documentary) Multimedia documentary project about life in residential highrises

Highrise is a multi-year, multimedia documentary project about life in residential highrises, directed by Katerina Cizek and produced by Gerry Flahive for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). The project, which began in 2009, includes five web documentaries—The Thousandth Tower, Out My Window, One Millionth Tower, A Short History of the Highrise and Universe Within: Digital Lives in the Global Highrise—as well as more than 20 derivative projects such as public art exhibits and live performances.

<i>Menstrual Man</i> 2013 film

Menstrual Man is a 2013 documentary film by Amit Virmani. The film tells the story of Arunachalam Muruganantham, an Indian social entrepreneur and inventor whose machines enable rural women to manufacture low-cost sanitary pads for their communities. It premiered at the 2013 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, and was voted a Top Ten Audience Favourite at both Hot Docs and IDFA the same year. The film was nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

Ann Shin is a filmmaker and writer based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liz Marshall</span> Canadian film director

Liz Marshall is a Canadian filmmaker based in Toronto. Since the 1990s, she has directed and produced independent projects and been part of film and television teams, creating broadcast, theatrical, campaign and cross-platform documentaries shot around the world. Marshall's feature length documentaries largely focus on social justice and environmental themes through strong characters. She is known for The Ghosts in Our Machine and for Water on the Table, for which she also produced impact and engagement campaigns, and attended many global events as a public speaker. Water on the Table features water rights activist, author and public figure Maude Barlow. The Ghosts in Our Machine features animal rights activist, photojournalist and author Jo-Anne McArthur.

Maya Gallus is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, and co-founder of Red Queen Productions with Justine Pimlott. Her films have been screened at international film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, SEOUL International Women’s Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, This Human World Film Festival (Vienna) and Women Make Waves (Taiwan), among others. Her work has also screened at the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Donostia Kultura, San Sebastián and Canada House UK, as well as theatrically in Tokyo, San Francisco, Key West and Toronto, and been broadcast around the world. She has won numerous awards, including a Gemini Award for Best Direction for Girl Inside, and has been featured in The Guardian, UK; Ms. (Magazine), Curve (Magazine), Bust (Magazine), Salon (Magazine), POV and The Walrus, among others. She is a Director/Writer alumna of the Canadian Film Centre and a participant in Women in the Director’s Chair. She will be honoured with a "Focus On" retrospective at the 2017 Hot Docs festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pavel Cuzuioc</span> Moldovan filmmaker (born 1978)

Pavel Cuzuioc is an Austrian, Moldovan, Romanian filmmaker.

Broke is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Rosvita Dransfeld and released in 2009. The film centres on the friendship between David Woolfson, a pawn shop owner in Edmonton, Alberta, and Chris Hoard, an ex-convict who volunteers as an assistant to Woolfson in the shop.

The Holier It Gets is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Jennifer Baichwal and released in 2000. The film is a personal document of Baichwal and her family on a pilgrimage to India, honouring their father Krishna's wishes to have his ashes scattered at the source of the Ganges following his death.

References

  1. "The story of North Koreans who defect to China and beyond". The Current . Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 26 April 2013. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
  2. Seagal, Alina (27 June 2013). "Canadian filmmaker teams up with smuggler to help North Korean defectors". Yahoo! News . Retrieved 27 June 2013.
  3. Barnard, Linda (26 April 2013). "Hot Docs: The Defector tracks a harrowing escape from North Korea". Toronto Star . Retrieved 27 June 2013.
  4. "The Defector: Escape from North Korea". IDFA Website. Retrieved May 25, 2021.
  5. "TVO Documentaries Take Top Honours at the 2014 Canadian Screen Awards". Cision. 6 March 2014. Retrieved 25 May 2021.