Sun Kim on documenting North Korean women, matchmaking and marriage

“North South Man Woman” co-director Sun Kim returns to the NK News Podcast to discuss the five-year process of making the documentary, which follows North Korean defector Yoojin Han and her matchmaking agency connecting North Korean women with South Korean men.

Kim explains how a chance encounter with longtime collaborator Morten Traavik in North Korea eventually led to the project, why Yoojin agreed to participate when other matchmakers declined and how the COVID-19 pandemic forced the filmmakers to rethink the documentary’s original focus on couples meeting and falling in love.

The conversation explores how years of filming changed Kim’s relationships with Yoojin and the other women, the challenges of documenting marriage and intimacy and what Yoojin’s own relationship revealed about cultural differences, personal compatibility and the difficulties North Korean defectors can face while building new lives in South Korea.

Kim also reflects on stereotypes surrounding North Korean women, the pressure some defectors feel to hide their accents and why the filmmakers sought to keep politics in the background — even as inter-Korean relations deteriorated and Pyongyang abandoned reunification as a national goal.

About the podcast: The North Korea News Podcast is a weekly podcast hosted by Alannah Hill exclusively for NK News, covering all things DPRK — from news to extended interviews with leading experts and analysts in the field, along with insight from our very own journalists.