This year, director Eiji Han Shimizu debuted his first feature film “True North” — an animated story that speaks to the inhumane brutality of North Korea. Set for a theatrical release in Japan in 2021, the film has received strong reviews, winning the Free Spirit Award – Special Mention at the Warsaw International Film Festival and drawing praise at the <a href="https://2020.tiff-jp.net/en/">33rd Tokyo International Film Festival.</a>
The film “contains a raw message of hope, and the possibility of finding meaning even in the darkest of times,” according to<a href="https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2020/11/096671da01ad-feature-animated-film-shines-light-into-north-koreas-darkest-corners.html"> Donican Lam</a> from Japan’s Kyodo News.
While an animated film, “writer-director Eiji Han Shimizu’s True North is definitely not for kids,” notes Jordan Mintzer from <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/true-north-review-1299303">The Hollywood Reporter</a>. It is a gruesome, chilling look at a North Korean prison camp replete with starvation, executions, disease, rape, and so on. 
In the film. a boy, along with his older sister and mother, are forced into a labor camp after their father is jailed for a supposed &#8220;political crime.&#8221; In the camp, they must learn to survive among the perilous conditions.
“I thought it would be important to tell these difficult stories through a very accessible medium such an animation,” director <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/10/30/Animated-film-portrays-the-horrors-of-North-Korean-prison-camps/7391603979457/">Han Shimizu</a> says, “I had been looking for a project to work on, and then I realized — maybe this is my calling.” 
Despite the fact that an estimated 120,000 prisoners are held in North Korean camps, no known photographs of the compounds exist, leaving Shimizu to rely on firsthand accounts from former North Koreans.
&#8220;When it comes to North Korean issues, we have heard the horrendous stories,” he <a href="https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2092673658731/animated-film-portrays-the-horrors-of-north-korean-prison-camps">said</a>, “but using animation and attaching human faces, a human world, to these stories — I&#8217;m hoping that people are moved emotionally, not just intellectually.”
Notably, Ji Seong-ho — the North Korean defector who was a guest of President Trump at the 2018 State Of The Union — went to the “True North” debut screening at the Bucheon film festival. It “touches on all aspects of human rights in North Korea: children’s rights, treatment of women, freedom of religion,” <a href="https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2092673658731/animated-film-portrays-the-horrors-of-north-korean-prison-camps">he expressed</a>. 
&#8220;The movie made me think, what am I doing for North Koreans right now? Am I doing the best I can do for them right now?” he added.
“True North” is disquieting, but a must-watch account of the struggles faced by countless North Korean civilians living under the oppressive Kim regime. 
It is our civil and moral duty as Americans who are cognizant of the splendors of freedom to not neglect the innocent lives being tormented by North Korea, China, and allies in the East. Shimizu’s debut is a bold and courageous film that Americans — and people everywhere — should make every effort to watch once it is widely available.
Gabe Kaminsky is a writer and student. His work has been featured The American Conservative, HollywoodinToto, RealClearPolitics, The Washington Times, The Washington Examiner, and elsewhere.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
The Daily Wire is one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe"> member</a>.

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This year, director Eiji Han Shimizu debuted his first feature film “True North” — an animated story that speaks to the inhumane brutality of North Korea.

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North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has reportedly been in a state of panic as he tries to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, which originated in China, in his country, which is poorly equipped to handle public health issues.
Kim &#8220;executed two people, closed the country’s capital, and banned fishing at sea in a frantic attempt to prevent the spread of coronavirus, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Friday,&#8221; the New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/11/27/kim-jong-un-reportedly-executed-2-closed-capital-amid-covid/">reported</a>. &#8220;The tyrant has been lashing out with &#8216;excessive anger&#8217; and taking &#8216;irrational measures&#8217; in recent weeks as a result of the pandemic, said one of the officials, Ha Tae-keung, who was briefed by National Intelligence Service.&#8221;
North Korea is so isolated from the rest of the world and is so underdeveloped that a report last year from the prestigious Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health <a href="https://www.ghsindex.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-Global-Health-Security-Index.pdf">ranked</a> the nation 193 out of 195 nations in terms of being prepared to face a pandemic.
Kim spoke at an alleged military parade last month where he claimed that North Korea had not had a single coronavirus victim. CNN <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-10-10-20-intl/h_7b0a8faa97bf45ab0fecb18d0ea472a9">noted</a> that &#8220;few experts believe that North Korea, a country of nearly 25 million people which shares a border with China, could have escaped the effects of a pandemic that has infected more than 36 million people worldwide, and killed more than 1 million people.&#8221;
The South China Morning Post <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3108113/north-korea-hiding-coronavirus-quarantine-camps-china">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Almost a year into the global emergency, a growing body of unverified reports and testimony from inside the notoriously secretive country is fuelling doubt about the North’s claimed clean bill of health.
The steady trickle of information – much of it based on second or third-hand recounting of claims by anonymous sources inside North Korea – raises the possibility of a humanitarian disaster in a country with poor medical care and widespread chronic malnourishment.
Tim Peters, a Christian activist who runs Seoul-based non-profit Helping Hands Korea, said sources in the North had reported the establishment of “quarantine camps” in cities near the Chinese border where medical neglect and starvation were common.</blockquote>
“One of the more alarming pieces of information that has come our way is that the DPRK government is providing absolutely minimal or no food or medicine to those who are interred there,” Peters said. “So, it’s up to the families of the quarantined citizens to come to the edge of the camps and bring food to keep quarantined relatives alive along with whatever health-related aids that they can muster, whether it be purchased medicines sold in the jangmadang markets, or even herbal home remedies gathered from mountainsides. My sources indicate many in these camps have already died, not only from the pandemic but also from starvation and related causes.”
He added, “In short, my sense is that the situation pertaining to Covid-19 inside North Korea is gravely serious.”
David Lee, a pastor who works with North Korean defectors in South Korea, said that his sources have claimed that those who have symptoms in North Korea were “being forced into isolation, or being boarded up in their homes without food or other support and left to die.”
Kim offered a rare apology in September for the killing of a South Korean government official who, after he was killed, had oil thrown on his body and was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/world/asia/korea-kim-jong-un-apology-killing-defector.html">burned</a> over fears that he might have the coronavirus.
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North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un Engaging In ‘Frantic’ Efforts To Stop Coronavirus Spread: Reports

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New Film “True North” Depicts Gruesome North Korean Prison Camps

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