Multimedia: Videos, Podcasts

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• Truth of A Border Area (subtitled)

This Japanese documentary shows the crossing the Tumen River on the border between China and North Korea, a route used by many escapees. Once on the North Korean side of the river, the crew follows life on a North Korean island where the entire population is used on an irrigation project while starving daily. The documentary also investigates what happens those who are caught at the border.

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• Children of the Secret State

A shocking documentary about the actual state of North Korea and its ever increasing number of orphans. It contains secret footage, filmed by a North Korean under the pseudonym of Ahn Chol, of starving orphans and international food aid being sold on the black market. Ahn Chol won the prestigious Rory Peck award for courageous freelance photography in 2001. He continues to risk his life filming in North Korea in an attempt to let the world know what’s really going on inside North Korea’s borders.

from hardash productions

‘Children of the Secret State’ is an investigation into North Korea, considered by many as the last Stalinist dictatorship, a hidden and sealed country riddled with propaganda and saturated with hostility to democracy and the West.

Joe Layburn and the Hardcash team discovered a young North Korean, known by the pseudonym ‘Ahn Chol’, who has been filming undercover so that the world can see what is going on in his native land: the country where his parents both starved to death.

His devastating footage shows some of the estimated 200,000 street children, mainly orphans, foraging for food in the mud and the gutters, ignored by the adults around them and ignored by the state which claims they are at its bosom.Joe embarks on a state-run tourist visit of North Korea, revealing vast unoccupied hotels, empty boulevards and countless monuments of Kim Jong II, the county’s leader.

- From hardcash productions (http://www.hardcashproductions.com/recent02.html)

Watch Children of the Secret State

Children of the Secret State on Wikipedia
Children of the Secret State on IMDB

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• BBC Podcast on North Korean Refugees: Read
  

North Korea has one of the worst human rights records on earth. It’s a desparately poor country where even the slightest amount of dissent is punished severely.

For average North Korean citizens, simply leaving the country without official permission is considered an act of treason. Still, over the last decade, tens of thousands of North Koreans have decided to do just that: to flee their native country. Some make to South Korea, where they get automatic citizenship and an array of financial benefits. The World’s Matthew Bell looked at some of these issues in our series on Korean refugees.

Listen to the full podcast HERE.

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• Risking Lives to Escape North Korea:
  

Hundred of thousands of North Koreans are fleeing their country illegally, crossing north into China.

In 2008, a camera team from South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper spent 10 months filming activity at the border. The BBC’s Olenka Frenkiel was given exclusive access to their material.

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• Inside North Korea

Take a frightening glimpse into North Korean society in Inside North Korea, a 2007 National Geographic documentary.

The documentary in its entirety can be viewed here:

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• Watch a trailer of “Seoul Train” HERE.

SEOUL TRAIN is the definitive exposé into this continuing and potentially explosive humanitarian crisis, portraying not only the human toll, but also the complex geopolitics of a crisis that threatens to undermine the stability of East Asian peace.

“A truly remarkable film – raw emotional power.”
Eric Heginbotham, Council on Foreign Relations

“A gripping documentary.”
Bob Woodruff, ABC News

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• HanVoice Launch Video: How To Save A Life