Jim Finn's THE JUCHE IDEA

At Moving Image Source, I have a piece on Jim Finn's amazing The Juche Idea (which screens tonight at MOMA at 7—you must see it!) and Kim Jong Il's film writings:

In “Let Us Create More Revolutionary Films Based on Socialist Life,” a whopping 28-page talk, Kim sounds like a contemporary U.S. critic dissing Avatar as a Dances With Wolves ripoff: “As I pointed out some time ago, the new script in which you made the hero a shoemaker has a similar story to that of the feature film The Girl Barber, and there is also nothing particularly new in what the writer wants to say….As a matter of fact, this work differs little from The Girl Barber in theme, plot and mood. The only difference is that the barber, the heroine in The Girl Barber, has been replaced by a shoemaker as the hero.”