While most documentaries about North Korea pinpoint human rights abuses or gloomy privation, this profile of four players from the North Korean women’s football team exposes the actual workings of Pyongyang society and the way ideology functions in its citizens’ work and personal lives. It’s also a record of two years on the pitch, initially a golden period as the team wins the Asian Championship in 2003. The personal can’t be more political for them: one player’s determination to beat Japan is driven by her need to avenge the mistreatment the Japanese inflicted on her mother, and before a match against the U.S. Kim Jong-il gives advice on improving their “anti-American vigilance.” Their status privileges them; they are “players of the people” and entitled to larger rations that insulate them from food shortages. For them, however, the sport is not about fame or fortune, but hope. “What is beautiful about soccer,” says one, “is that when you enter the pitch, you feel your heart swell, and the whole world is yours.”
Festivals and Awards
Official Selection
Locarno Film Festival, 2009
Vienna Film Festival, 2009