What is life really like beyond Pyongyang?

Other Side of North Korea explores the contrast between North Korea’s showcase capital and everyday life in the country’s provincial towns and rural communities.

The documentary begins in Pyongyang, with its broad avenues, monumental architecture, apartment buildings and comparatively developed infrastructure. It then travels beyond the capital to explore a very different side of North Korean life.
The factual framing of Songbun (North Korea’s system of social and political classification, based partly on perceived loyalty and family background across generations), restrictions on movement, rural disadvantage and unequal access to services in this documentary is consistent with reporting and research by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch.

United Nations reporting has described geographical and rural-urban disparities in access to food and other rights, as well as the influence of Songbun on residence and access to opportunities. Human Rights Watch has also documented restrictions on movement and discrimination associated with Songbun, including differences in access to housing, education, healthcare and employment.

The documentary looks at:

• Rural villages and family life
• Farming, including manual labor, animal power and older machinery
• Cooperative agriculture and household plots
• Rural food and local markets
• Schools and political education
• Village healthcare and limited medical resources
• Electricity, water and infrastructure
• Songbun : North Korea’s system of social and political classification, based partly on perceived loyalty and family background across generations
• Restrictions on residence and movement
• Differences in opportunities and access to services between Pyongyang and rural areas
• The carefully controlled experience of many foreign visitors
• The everyday lives of ordinary North Korean families

This documentary does not suggest that every rural community or every North Korean family lives under identical conditions. Individual experiences and living standards can vary considerably.

IMPORTANT:This documentary is based on documented research and publicly available reporting from established sources, including United Nations and Human Rights Watch reports. The visuals are AI-generated cinematic reconstructions created to illustrate the documented information discussed in the film. The scenes are not presented as original documentary footage filmed inside North Korea. They are cinematic reconstructions created to illustrate documented aspects of life in the country.

Because independent access to North Korea remains extremely restricted, some aspects of everyday life are difficult to verify directly. This documentary therefore distinguishes documented information from visual reconstruction and avoids claiming that every scene represents every North Korean community.
Our aim is to look beyond both the showcase image of Pyongyang and simplistic stereotypes, while remembering the ordinary people and families living their daily lives across the country.
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