AN international film festival opens Thursday in what may seem the unlikeliest of places: North Korea.

Held every two years, the Pyongyang International Film Festival offers North Koreans their only chance to see a wide array of foreign films on the big screen — from Britain, Germany and elsewhere (but not the United States). And it’s the only time foreigners are allowed into North Korean theaters to watch movies alongside locals.

This year, festivalgoers will get the chance to see two feature films shot in North Korea but edited overseas: the romantic comedy “Comrade Kim Goes Flying,” a joint North Korean-European production, and “Meet in Pyongyang,” made in conjunction with a Chinese studio.

While it’s true that homegrown movies predictably tend toward propaganda with a healthy dose of tear-jerker, North Korea is a film-crazy country. Well-to-do residents pay as much as 500 won (US$5) to see new releases from the government-run Korean Film Studio, as well as Russian and Chinese imports.

Those who don’t have the means to go to the theater tune into the Mansudae TV channel, which shows mostly Chinese and Eastern European films on weekends. Some recent offerings have included “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and the only Western offering shown on state TV in recent memory, the British film “Bend It Like Beckham,” which aired in 2010.

This year, a huge screen in front of the Pyongyang train station has become another popular place to watch movies. On Monday, hundreds of locals stood transfixed by a North Korean drama in a plaza in front of the station.

The late leader Kim Jong-il, who died in December, was a notorious film buff.

He was 7 when he saw his first film — “My Hometown” — the inaugural film made by the Korean Film Studio. The film, about a young man who returns to his village after Korea is liberated from Japan, made a lifelong impression on the future leader, according to Choe Hung-ryol, director of the studio’s external affairs department.

Kim’s father, North Korea founder Kim Il-sung, also wrote a film called “The Flower Girl,” and current leader Kim Jong-un also has a keen interest in film, according to Korean Film Studio spokesman Choe.

For British filmmaker Nicholas Bonner and his Belgian co-producer Anja Daelemans, the upcoming North Korean premiere of “Comrade Kim Goes Flying” will have been nearly seven years in the making.

The film, a romantic comedy about a coal miner who dreams of becoming an acrobat, was shot in North Korea in 2010 with a local cast, directed by veteran North Korean filmmaker Kim Gwang-hun, and edited in Belgium.

“It’s not what you expect from North Korea, and it’s not something people have seen before,” Bonner said.

Writing the script took three years, as the North Korean and European members of the team worked to come up with a story line that was both entertaining and politically safe for showing in North Korea. Bonner credits the Koreans with contributing some of the film’s funniest moments

“In the end, you’re dealing with professionals,” Bonner said. “They do their job. You’re in the film world, and we’re all making a film.”

But for sheer scale, “Comrade Kim” can’t possibly compete with the heavyweight of North Korean cinema, the 63-part epic “Nation and Destiny,” which began in the 1990s. Filming is already under way on part 64.

(SD-Agencies)