Under the Sun

Under the Sun (Im Strahl der Sonne, 2015) is Vitaly Mansky's documentary you can watch online on iFILM. Eight-year-old Zin-mi from Pyongyang is being prepped to join the children's union, and North Korea's officials scripted her "perfect" life for the camera themselves.

Mansky was handed a model family to film: a model school, a model flat, parents at model factories, rehearsals for a festival honoring the leader. Then he kept the camera rolling between takes. Minders feed lines, dim the lights during breaks and order joy to be performed again on cue — and the very myth they meant to immortalize quietly comes apart. What he made is a film about how propaganda gets manufactured.

A Czech, German, Latvian and Russian co-production, it offers a rare look past the world's most sealed border, with no voice-over lecturing — just observation and cutting. The most damning moment is the tiredness on a child's face between calls of "cut." For anyone wanting to see the machinery of a totalitarian show from the inside. Stream Under the Sun (2015) online on iFILM.