The Juche Idea - Jim Finn

THE JUCHE IDEA
Jim Finn, 62 min, 2008
SYNOPSIS
In the late 1960’s Kim Jong Il guaranteed his
succession as the Dear Leader of North Korea by
adapting his father’s Juche (pronounced choo-
CHAY) philosophy to propaganda, film and art.
Translated as self-reliance, Juche is a hybrid of
Confucian and authoritarian Stalinist pseudosocialism.
The film is about a South Korean
video artist who comes to a North Korean art
residency to help bring Juche cinema into the
21st century. Inspired by the real-life story of
the South Korean director kidnapped in the 70’s
to invigorate the North Korean film industry, the film follows Yoon Jung Lee, a young video artist invited to work at a
Juche art residency on a North Korean collective farm. The story is told through the films she made at the residency as
well as interviews with a Bulgarian filmmaker and even a brief sci-fi movie.
SELECTED PRESS for THE JUCHE IDEA (2008)
VARIETY: “The evidence that current filmmaking is brimming with original, standard-breaking
creations has to include the work of Jim Finn, whose brilliant ‘The Juche Idea’ is the latest in a
growing filmography without precedent or category... ‘The Juche Idea’ effectively completes a
trilogy of ultra-compact features that boldly upturn notions of documentary and fiction,
propaganda thought, reality and restaging, and even what an “experimental film” actually is. To say
that these films open up new possibilities for satire, ideas and language isn’t an overstatement.”
“
INDIEWIRE: “...a hilarious exploration of North Korean perspectives on artistic expression... has the
kind of outsider perspective that avant-garde film lovers will find delectable.”
“
SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN “...Both capitalism and socialism are skewered with no mercy and
maximum mirth by Jim Finn’s The Juche Idea, which takes the published film theories of none other
than Kim Jong-Il as its point of entry…... This world — where shoveling duck dung together makes for
a romantic first date — looks like North Korea, one has to guess, or at least “Dear Leader’s” ideal version.
Still, reviewers who assume capitalism emerges unscathed from the uproarious Juche Idea are
watching the movie with one eye closed. Finn spotlights hilarious propagandistic turns of phrase
such as “the tiny dentures of imperialism.” But with one capitalist land outside the movie screen
saddled with a 700 billion dollar debt, a viewer is left to wonder who’s zooming who when passing
through the film’s multi-faceted looking glass….
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
“Jim Finn has made a name for himself...thanks to his feeling for irony and his
capacity to shape something new from propaganda, news and other historic
images. Not to forget his very dry sense of humour.” (Rotterdam International
Film Festival)
Jim Finn (b. St. Louis, 1968) uses humor and historical fiction to examine ideology,
capitalism and revolutionary art practices. His work has screened at international
festivals like Rotterdam, Sundance and Edinburgh as well as museums and
cinematheques such as the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Danish Film Institute
and the Harvard Film Archive. His latest work is a trilogy of feature-length films
looking at Marxist ideology. The first of these, Interkosmos, was called “a retro
gust of communist utopianism” by the Village Voice and “charming and fantastic,
so full of rare atmospheres” by Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin. His second feature
La Trinchera Luminosa del Presidente Gonzalo was put on the Village Voice’s
Top 10 Year in Experimental Film. And Variety called The Juche Idea “brilliant”
and said all three films “upturn notions of documentary and fiction, propaganda
thought, reality and restaging, and even what an ‘experimental film’ actually is.”
PRINCIPAL CAST
BEST NARRATIVE FILM
CHICAGO
UNDERGROUND
FILM FESTIVAL
2008
HONORABLE MENTION
ANN ARBOR
FILM FESTIVAL
2008
OFFICIAL SELECTION
AFI
FILM FESTIVAL
2008
BUENOS AIRES
INTERNATIONAL
FESTIVAL OF
INDEPENDENT FILM
2008
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
NEW YORK
UNDERGROUND
FILM FESTIVAL
2008
OFFICIAL SELECTION
EDINBURGH
INTERNATIONAL
FILM FESTIVAL
2008
Jung Yoon Lee Daniela Kostova
Kim Sung Oleg Mavromatti
PRINCIPAL CREW
Writer/Director Jim Finn
Art Directors Jung Yoon Lee
Daniela Kostova
Music Pauline Oliveros
Neung Phak
Sound Design Jesse Stiles
CONTACT
finn.jim@gmail.com www.jimfinn.org