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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Now we turn to a riveting documentary about the people of North Korea, those who live or try to live under a repressive, violent regime, and those who dare to leave. As the Washington Post review of the film says, "This engrossing documentary plays like a thriller except the horrors are real." It is called Beyond Utopia, a sardonic comment on the fact that the controlling North Korean regime wants its subjects to think they live in a utopia. Of course, it's the opposite. Food is scarce. Propaganda is plentiful. Young children sing songs about killing Americans.

Citizens are indoctrinated to believe that everything they do they should do to make dear leader happy and if you dissent, you might die. Which makes the harrowing journey of those who defect so chilling as we see in the film. Beyond Utopia falls a Christian pastor named Sung-eun Kim, who says over the many years he's helped more than 1,000 North Koreans escape through an Underground Railroad of helpful souls, as well as greedy profiteers.

Through hidden cameras and phone video, we watched as a family of five a mom, dad, two young girls, and their eight-year-old grandmother are passed along a network of "brokers," who aid in the family's escape for a price. They spend 10 hours in a pitch black jungle, trekking over three mountains, sleeping on the ground, drinking any water they can find, crossing rivers in an unstable boat, trying to set foot in a country where they will be safe, but always, always in fear of being caught.

The film also follows the efforts of a mother named So-yeon jockeying phone calls, and wiring money first to coordinate the escape of her son and then to find out what happened to him when his plan to leave goes awry. The filmmakers had access to rare footage shot inside North Korea, as well as footage taken by the families of escapees who were able to be present when the film crew could not. Beyond Utopia won the Audience Award for US documentary at Sundance. It's airing tonight at IFC Center if you want to catch it there. Director Madeleine Gavin joins us to talk about her film. Madeleine, welcome to All Of It.

Madeleine Gavin: Hi, Alison, thank you so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: The film does a really good job of helping us understand just how insular, isolated, and abused the population of North Korea is. I think we all know it intellectually. When you see the footage, and when you hear people talk about it, would you share one or two examples with our audience so we can get an understanding of what life is like for an average North Korean?

Madeleine Gavin: There are so many peculiarities to what life is like for an average North Korean. Yes, I can share a few. In North Korea, every single household, every single building, every single school, et cetera, every single household has to display portraits of the dear leaders. They have to be in a very prominent spot. They have to be very well preserved. Guards can come into any home at any time, and check the paintings for the quality, whether there's dust on these portraits, whether the portraits have started to fade due to heat or light.

These portraits are the most important thing. In the summer in North Korea, where there's really no air conditioning, people will have a fan in their home, and those fans have to be pointed in the direction of the portraits rather than the people because if your portrait has dust if it has been fading, if you have not treated it properly, you will be punished. That's just one of the peculiarities. I could go on if you want. Everything is directed for the benefit of the dear leaders and all of life really revolves around keeping this country hermetically sealed in a way that the dear leaders can maintain a kind of deity status.

Alison Stewart: Given the danger of defection how did you get subjects to participate the actual defectors? Why did they agree? How did you get them to agree?

Madeleine Gavin: Well, that was really tricky because, obviously, for instance, the Roh family who we follow they found out inside North Korea that they were on a list to be banished, and banished is basically a death sentence. This was because they had had family members who had defected within the last three years and Kim Jong Un had started a new program where anyone with family members who had defected in the last three years was going to be severely punished.

They found this out and they just fled across the river into China. Not knowing where you go from there. Not knowing anything about the outside world. They roamed around the mountains of China, Changbai Mountain, for five days, and happened very luckily for them to come upon a farmer who knew someone, who knew someone, who knew someone in the Underground Railroad. With a family like that, you can't ask for consent because even the concept of a film is not even something that they can really clock or understand.

The way that we got involved with this story was we were following Pastor Kim, as you said, and a family member of the Roh family who had already defected, approached Pastor Kim about his family. He gave a temporary consent for filming to begin. Throughout the entire filming of this film, we knew that we may not even have the film at the end because we knew that we weren't going to-- obviously, that wasn't consent, and up until literally weeks before we premiered this film, the family had the right to deny consent.

As it turned out, they actually gave their consent very willingly before that, once they were in South Korea. We went into this knowing that the only way we could possibly make a film like this was to make a film risking that in the end we may not have a film, because we may not be able to show anything that we were shooting.

Alison Stewart: I was going to ask what were some of the conversations you had around ethics because you are following people who could find themselves possibly being killed, being hurt. What were the conversations around, "What do we do if we see X? What do we do if X happens to our subject?"

Madeleine Gavin: Everything that we were doing was really directed around this idea of ethics, the idea of not putting anyone at any further risk. All of our decisions were made-- Pastor Kim was really the lead voice in terms of where we could shoot, when, where we could be versus the Underground Railroad could only be. We had consultants in the policy world, and the activism world both in South Korea, and the United States, NGOs, every single decision was made with all of these voices.

Pastor Kim, his network, the Underground Railroad, keeps cameras hidden along the border of North Korea, and China, which is a border of more than 800 miles, it's a river border. These very brave North Koreans are sometimes smuggling those cameras into North Korea to shoot the truth of their country and get that out. Because on our news, we really don't hear anything about the people. We hear about the missiles and the parades. Those cameras are used by North Koreans who want to get the truth of their country out, but they're also used by the Underground Railroad. It's never been done as extensively as what we did.

The Underground Railroad and that network is shooting along the way, again, to get information into North Korea, and out of North Korea. The cameras have always been a part of the Underground Railroad, but in terms of every decision that we were making as a film, it was all being directed by multiple sources. That's why for instance none of us, obviously, were in China. Pastor Kim, doesn't even go into China anymore. He hasn't been able to go into China since 2009 because he's been known by the North Korean regime really for 23 years now.

In 2009, he was told by the Chinese police, the contacts of his in the Chinese police that he was at risk of being kidnapped into North Korea. He would put the family more at risk if he were there, he would put himself more at risk, obviously, we would have put them more at risk. China was only the Underground Railroad shooting. Then we were able to be in Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Laos, the border of Thailand, and South Korea, but everything was about ethics, from the people to the route to the brokers whose faces we blurred, voices we distorted and [unintelligible 00:09:18]. This is a huge concern.

Alison Stewart: You just gave us a laundry list of countries. Would you kindly explain to our audience about why you had to give us a laundry list of countries? Why people have to go through this long route to safety if they make it?

Madeleine Gavin: Yes. China is very heavily aligned with North Korea, and they are really complicit in so many ways. China has a policy that has only gotten more severe over the last few years of repatriating any North Koreans who they find inside the walls of China knowing what will happen to those people when they are sent back to North Korea. That's China. I

n terms of the countries outside of China, those routes do vary depending on what's going on geopolitically at any particular time. There are times that people take a route into Mongolia. There are times when Cambodia is involved. In the case of the Roh family, it was Vietnam and Laos. Both of those countries also have relationships with North Korea, not to the extent that China does.

In terms of repatriation, it's a little bit catch-as-catch-can. There are people who have been repatriated from those countries back to North Korea, and there are times when people have been imprisoned in those countries and then let go. The only way to ensure safety for a defector is to get to a safe country. Thailand is one of those "safe countries." A lot of this has to do with the whole political hotbed of the Korean peninsula, which really has been a political hotbed since the genesis of the country of North Korea.

You've got China and North Korea, and then you've got Japan, South Korea, and the United States in these dual forces. Nobody wants to give anything. The countries around there, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, et cetera, get involved in that drama as well. Yes. The routes do change, but routes out of North Korea are always going to involve multiple countries because going from North Korea to South Korea, which would seem like the most logical way to defect is virtually impossible because the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea is actually one of the most militarized zones in the world. Not only are there soldiers on both sides, but there's estimated to be more than 2 million mines in the land around there. Any defection really happens into China, and then through several countries.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Madeleine Gavin, the director of the film Beyond Utopia. After a quick break, we'll learn more about Pastor Kim, the role of brokers, and here about one mother's quest to see her son again. This is All Of It.

You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Director Madeleine Gavin. Her film Beyond Utopia, taking a look at the life of North Koreans and those who try to defect. It won the Audience Award for US documentary at Sundance. It's airing tonight at IFC Center here in the city.

Let's talk about Pastor Kim, who is featured prominently in the film. His wife was a North Korean defector after being a commander in the military. Why does he do what he does? He was born in South Korea, started out as a fisherman. Why does he do this work?

Madeleine Gavin: Yes. Pastor Kim is first and foremost a pastor. He made a commitment to his God that he would do this work. He, initially when he was training to be a pastor, went into China to do missionary work. He was stationed in China, right near the border of North Korea. At the time, it was a lot easier to defect. It was during the famine, and he was right along the river, the Tumen River, he saw a lot of dead bodies in the water. What he saw was that neither side wanted to keep these bodies. The North Korean soldiers were pushing the bodies to the Chinese side of the river. The Chinese soldiers were pushing the bodies back to the North Korean side of the river, and it broke his heart.

What he also realized, because North and South Korea have been separated for quite a while now but what he realized in all of this was, "Wait, we are the same people. We are the same language. We were the same country." He suddenly felt this responsibility to help his former fellow countrymen and women. At the same time, one of the first people who he met, who was North Korean, was a woman who defected across the river. He and she fell in love. They ended up getting married. She's in our film as well. She's an amazing human being. That furthered his commitment.

In trying to get his wife, because he met his wife, she comes over the river into China. In trying to get his wife to South Korea from China, he had to learn all these routes. He had to learn about the whole geopolitical situation in Asia. Through that and through what he discovered, and through him getting his wife out, he realized he had all this knowledge and he could use it to help other people.

Further to that, his wife and he lost a child, a young boy. At the time, Pastor Kim was actually helping another group to safety, and his child who was in South Korea died. When that happened, he felt an even further commitment, and he and his wife both then made a promise. She helps him as well with his work.

It's been his life commitment for the last 23 years. Not only has he made this commitment to do whatever he can to help rescue North Koreans, but he made a commitment to be with them along the route anywhere that he can be. Now that he can't go into China, he's still there in Southeast Asia. This is a man who has broken his neck. He's got metal pieces in his neck. He's had countless injuries. He's in terrible pain all the time, but he treks through the jungles between Vietnam and Laos.

He goes on the boat when people are lucky enough to make it to the border of Laos in Thailand. He goes on the boat across the Mekong River, even though he has been shot at while on that boat in the past. This is a real, very serious commitment that he feels he's made to his God.

Alison Stewart: The film is really interesting. It's an interesting choice you as a director made and your editor, is that part of the film, it's visceral. We're on this trip with this family. We're seeing the shaky footage from the smartphone cameras as they start to sleep under tarps, as a mother gives her coat to a little girl who's crying, as somebody's foot gets hurt. It's just so hard to watch, and you can really feel it.

You have another protagonist in the film, a woman who defected and always had hopes of having her son come with her. 10 years later, I think it's 10 years later, he's still not with her. She's trying to arrange for him to come. That is all really done over the phone. It's really just her, and it's very small and intimate as compared to the very dramatic footage we see. Tell me a little bit about that choice to have the two different sensibilities in this film.

Madeleine Gavin: Yes. Initially when Pastor Kim and I met and got to know each other over many, many months, before we decided to work together. We obviously had to know each other, really deeply trust each other. During those many months, we discovered that we really wanted to make the same kind of film.

We wanted to do something that really cracked open the world of North Korea because we don't have the opportunity to learn really anything about the true world of North Korea in our country. Also, that would put people really up close and personal with de defectors, with North Koreans. We decided that I would follow the next two defections or attempted escapes that Pastor Kim was involved in. The two groups who we do follow are the next two-

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow.

Madeleine Gavin: -groups who contacted Pastor Kim. There's no one else who we followed in terms of an escape.

We had no idea what was going to happen with either of these stories when we started to follow them. With So-yeon, yes, hers was always going to be a different story. Her son was brought over the river from North Korea into China by a North Korean broker. There was a time and place where he was supposed to hook up with the Underground Railroad in China. He never even got to that time and place.

What we heard is that one of the North Korean brokers who brought him over the river actually made a deal with the Chinese police and actually turned him in. We never even got to meet him, to follow him. So-yeon's story became her desperate attempts to find out where her son was. Basically, he was turned into the Chinese police. He was imprisoned in China. Then even though it was during the pandemic when the border was shut down between North Korea and China, we were in South Korea shooting with So-yeon at this time. The Chinese government repatriated him.

A very small number of people were repatriated during the pandemic. Most of them stayed in prison in China until very recently when they've started to be repatriated. Unfortunately, he was one of the unlucky few who were repatriated during the pandemic. So-yeon desperately wanted us to document her efforts to show how difficult it is to get any information out of North Korea, let alone accurate information out of North Korea.

That's what her story became. It became us with her in her apartment in South Korea. It became her desperate attempts on the phone with brokers inside North Korea, brokers inside China, and just trying to find out anything. Yes, I actually edited the film as well. As you talk about those different styles, it wasn't even planned. It was what happened, but they do have this very distinct contrast, like you say because the Roh family was all vérité on the run. So-yeon is very quiet, very still, and very just this desperate crying out into the walls of North Korea to find out something about her son.

Alison Stewart: It's also this pure loneliness that she has because at some point, people that she's contacting are saying, "Don't call me anymore." Even people that--

Madeleine Gavin: Yes.

Alison Stewart: "Just don't". You get the sense of, do they not want her to call them because it's they're done with it or they fear?

Madeleine Gavin: Yes, there's a lot of-- I've met so many defectors now and one thing that happens a lot, most defectors do not leave as a family the way the Roh family did. The Roh family are extremely unusual and extremely lucky because they came together and they made it, which is just extraordinary, right? They're this unit, but most defectors leave as one person, maybe two, and they're leaving their families behind, often with the hope of bringing them out later, but that doesn't always happen.

Often, if your family doesn't live near the border of North Korea and China, if you're inland in North Korea and you defect, you will probably never speak to your family again. Never know if they're alive or dead because the only way anyone can speak to someone inside North Korea is to hire a broker and to set up a very short phone call but that phone call has to happen near the border of China because that's the only way you'll be able to pick up any kind of cell signal.

Most people don't know anything about their families, and to those who do, many defectors have told me that their family members have said, "Please do not contact me anymore." So-yeon's mother was one of those because they don't want to be involved. It's not that she probably doesn't love her daughter or that these people-- It's that the North Korean regime is so unforgiving, unrelenting, that it's very dangerous for people inside North Korea to communicate with those outside, so many family members just cut it off completely.

Alison Stewart: Let me ask you a question about language. You would use the word "defector" as opposed to "escapee." Is there a reason for that?

Madeleine Gavin: You know, that's a good question. I used it because that's what everyone in the defector in the escapee community uses and everyone in the policy world uses, but I don't know what the origin of that word actually is. They are escapees.

Alison Stewart: That's the language people used with you?

Madeleine Gavin: Oh, yes, absolutely. Yes.

Alison Stewart: Before we wrap, we've only got a minute or two left. I just want to make the point also that we learn in the film is the brokers, they do not have the same altruistic intentions as Pastor Kim. That's about business, right?

Madeleine Gavin: Yes. The Underground Railroad is made up of a couple of different elements. One main element, yes, brokers who are doing this to make a living and they really, according to Pastor Kim and according to our experience, don't necessarily care one way or the other. They're making a living, these people represent an income for them.

There is another side of the Underground Railroad which is more spiritually inclined. They're more aligned with the cause of helping people to escape. Some of them are doing missionary work. Some of them are just humanists or working for different NGOs that are not even religiously inclined or whatever. There is that element as well, but yes, a big part of the Underground Railroad are brokers doing it for money and to make a living.

Alison Stewart: The name of the film is Beyond Utopia. My guest has been Madeleine Gavin, its director. Beyond Utopia is screening tonight at the IFC Center. Madeleine, thank you so much for being with us and sharing your filmmaking and your reporting with us.

Madeleine Gavin: Thank you so much, Alison. I'm really honored to be on your show.

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