After years of negotiation, the Russian director Vitaly Mansky was invited by the North Korean government to make a film about one girl and her family in the year she prepares to join the Children’s Union, on the ‘Day of the Shining Star’ (Kim Jong-Il’s birthday).

“My father says that Korea is the most beautiful country…” says eight-year-old Zin-mi. And so it might seem as Mansky films her in joyous, patriotic school pageants and in dance class, or with her parents, eating delicious food in their picturesque apartment.

But the government handlers supervising the production did not realize that Mansky kept filming even after they had shouted “Cut.” Under the Sun is the jaw-dropping result, a “surreal and sinister… real-life version of The Truman Show.” —The Hollywood Reporter

Part of The Center’s BIG IDEA project The Unreliable Narrator. 

Running time 1 hour 46 minutes.