Synopsis
See a place few have ever seen.
A courageous pastor uses his underground network to rescue and aid North Korean families as they risk their lives to embrace freedom.
Directed by Madeleine Gavin
A courageous pastor uses his underground network to rescue and aid North Korean families as they risk their lives to embrace freedom.
Corée du Nord - Le prix de la liberté, Flucht aus Nordkorea, ビヨンド・ユートピア 脱北", Beyond Utopia: Escape from North Korea, Beyond Utopia: Escaping North Korea, 비욘드 유토피아, 北了, 逃离乌托邦, Útěk z Utopie, Corée du Nord : Le Prix de la liberté, Onkraj utopije, За утопией, Flykten från Nordkorea, Pako Pohjois-Koreasta, 逃出北韓, ビヨンド・ユートピア 脱北, Ceļš uz brīvību: bēgšana no Ziemeļkorejas, Flugten fra Nordkorea, Teispool utoopiat, Зад Утопия
revolutionary. one of the best, most informative, most harrowing, most important documentaries i've ever seen. using hidden camera footage, candid interviews, crucial historical context, and so much more, it thoroughly and bravely reveals truths about North Korea that the Kim regime has gone to great lengths to cover up. there is so little in-depth reporting about the relatively new country's atrocities because it's virtually impossible to get anything in or out, much less record. it's a minor miracle that these filmmakers pulled this off at all; the fact that it's masterfully made is just a bonus.
the film follows multiple Koreans' stories: an author reflects on her former life in North Korea, including the brainwashing, the torture, the cultural isolation,…
Devastating, harrowing, incredible, important film. An eye-opening look at one of the cruelest regimes in the world, and the lengths people will go to escape it.
Okay so I'm about to say some really mean things about a documentary about people escaping North Korea. To be clear: not a North Korea fan, seems like a pretty fucked up place, I reckon! People should be, you know, allowed to leave it!
Even as a relatively historically illiterate person, this screamed to me as western propaganda. (I don't think one needs a history degree to know that America has a fun habit of fucking up a lot of countries all around the world.) There's time spent in the film on the propaganda fed to the people of North Korea, well, guess what: Western media feeds us lies about our history and system too.
One of the talking heads…
US propaganda. I am disgusted with the people liking this garbage. USA started an illegal war with Korea (replacing decades of Japanese colonial rule) wanting to be the new imperialist power, killed off 20-25% (that's 1 in 4 people, admitted by the colonel at that time proudly) of its population, dropped thousands of bombs (on 75% of land) and illegally separated the country into two and is still militarizing South Korea and has complete control over it.
Anyone who actually thinks with his own brain wouldn't rate this any higher. Go watch this documentary instead that asks North Koreans who now live in South Korea unwillingly about their thoughts and experiences even though they could get punished for saying it and have no way to return to the North anymore: youtu.be/ktE_3PrJZO0
Indescribably good. Please watch this if you get a chance. Made up of mostly cell phone footage of North Korean defectors making the harrowing journey through China, Laos, Vietnam, etc in hopes of reaching safety. Any misstep very likely results in death. Informative, captivating, bittersweet, heartbreaking. One of the most moving documentaries I have ever seen. Might be my favorite from Sundance 2023
2023 Ranked
Sundance Ranked
Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 3
Kim Jong Un (archive footage) and Roseanne Barr in Fahrenheit 11/9
2. Roseanne Barr and Robert DeNiro in 15 Minutes
3. Robert DeNiro and Kevin Bacon in Sleepers
I can see that the intention of this documentary is really good and not necessarily western propaganda, although many may use it that way. The atrocities of the North Korean regime are no longer a mystery.
This doesn’t erase the fact that much of the suffering of these people was caused by the American army long ago, or that the capitalist system also condemns millions of people to hunger and death all over the world every day.
I think this shows that the lack of consideration for human life doesn’t depend on some government regime, but sadly it’s recurrent among the powerful. This pastor is a wonderful human being who commits himself to his cause with all his strength, and that is really touching and hopeful.
Harrowing, gripping, moving, and genuinely enlightening from the very first frame to the end. By relying on real footage—no dramatizations, as the opening text makes clear—the film offers a clearer, more immediate understanding of life in North Korea, especially its darkest realities. Paired with what I’ve seen in My Brothers and Sisters in the North and the many North Korean-produced films floating around YouTube, it helps form a disturbingly coherent picture of what life there looks like. You also learn more about the history, including how the country’s head honcho seemingly presents himself as a Christ-like figure, which is… wild.
The rescue mission footage adds real tension—you never quite know how things will unfold—and visually, the…
📜 Documentaries 🏆 2023 Ranked 🏅 Top 100 Films
Beyond Utopia is essential viewing.
I don't recall ever having the chance to understand this viscerally what it is like escaping from—or even surviving in—North Korea.
Watching two families attempting to survive transit, we learn what it means to cross three hostile countries illegally while depending on charity workers who pay and collaborate with profit-oriented human traffickers (or "Brokers"). This is going to stay with me.
The moments of rest are brief, the safe houses look risky, there is little time between transit stages to recover physically, terrain is unsafe, and defectors are guaranteed to start off malnourished.
This would be a once-in-a-lifetime miserably difficult journey even without trying to escape,…
It's a little ironic to name your movie Beyond Utopia as a jab at the way North Korean propaganda pitches their country as when the image your painting of South Korean is suspiciously uncritical.
The film is so proud for showing all the nonsense and all the propaganda the party machine in North Korea pushes with a lot of screen time given to defectors telling you what they were told and how those things were obviously untrue. This creates an impression in your mind that indoctrination and transparent untruths are what propaganda is, but propaganda is far more multi-dimensional than that because what you don't say matters just as much as what you do say.
There's a heavy emphasis on…
BEYOND UTOPIA is one of the best documentaries to come out of Sundance this year. A thrilling, emotional & informative look at various North Koreans hoping to flee from oppression to freedom. This powerful act of bravery gripped me from beginning to end & had me in tears multiple times. Truly excellent storytelling where the risk is always high and the climax is so incredibly moving.
There’s a moment in this movie where this whole Korean family has journeyed to the China/Korea border. They have traveled as a family and are barely surviving in the middle of the woods.
But they have so much farther to go. A trusted voice on the phone tells them that they have to journey through multiple countries. The land is treacherous. There are police on the lookout for defectors like them and the police are everywhere. If the family is caught, in a best case scenario, they will likely be ransomed. In a worst case scenario they will be tortured and killed.
After the call is over, massive dangerous journey still ahead of them, the 80-year-old grandmother of the family…