North Korea has been encouraging the production of propaganda videos for the regime, including one by a film crew sent to a major state construction project. But the production was staged to misrepresent actual conditions at the site, prompting criticism that it amounts to cheap propaganda.
“A film crew was sent by the Korean Central Broadcasting Committee to the construction site of the Tanchon No. 1 Power Plant in early September. The team spent a few days filming at the site for a video to be broadcast by Korean Central Television,” a source in South Hamgyong province told The Daily NK recently.
According to the source, the film crew was shooting footage for a video to promote the smooth progress of the first phase of the Tanchon Power Plant construction and show how the site is changing day by day, as requested by the authorities.
However, the film crew filmed material that had nothing to do with the actual work being done by “shock troops” from the government’s Taehung Trade Supervision Bureau on waterway tunnels at the power plant.
In addition, the film crew’s efforts to set up filming on site ended up interrupting construction work, the source said.
“As soon as the film crew arrived, the digging stopped. The production team had the workers clean up the area to make it look cleaner and more orderly than it was, and then had a select group of workers practice repeating the same motions dozens of times,” he said.
“In reality, the workers are exhausted and wearing a motley assortment of outfits. But the film crew had the workers put on the same outfits and instructed them to run around the site,” the source added.
North Korean authorities appear eager to produce flashy videos that focus on the progress of major state construction projects while concealing the actual conditions at those sites.
“If people keep watching videos like this, they’ll be fooled into thinking that North Korea has improved, and they’ll eventually come to believe it. That’s what the government really hopes to achieve by sending the film crew to these sites to make visual content,” the source said.
The Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea decided at its 10th Plenary Session in late June and early July to complete the first phase of construction of the Tanchon Power Plant by the end of the year.
An article on the Central Committee meeting in the Rodong Sinmun newspaper commented as follows: “In the power industry, the first stage of construction of the Tanchon Power Plant should be completed by the end of the year, and we should also push ahead with the construction of other power plants. In addition, we should make efforts to increase the efficiency of our existing power plants and rationalize the power supply, as well as launch a society-wide campaign to save electricity so that the generated power can be used effectively.”
In short, North Korea is focusing on building power plants, including the Tanchon Power Plant, to solve the country’s electricity shortage.
The newspaper reported on July 21, “As part of the efforts to implement the decisions of the 10th Plenary Session, stories are being told at every energetic workplace in the country to inspire the people and arouse their victorious spirit. The first stage of construction (of the power plant) is more than 93% complete, and the assembly is basically finished.”
The Daily NK works with a network of sources in North Korea, China, and elsewhere. For security reasons, their identities remain anonymous.
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September 23, 2024 at 11:07AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)