North Korea's late former leader, Kim Jong Il, took film seriously. As a young man, he styled himself an auteur, overseeing the production of all films made in his country and the authorship of a book titled "On the Art of the Cinema."

He is reputed to have had a film library with more than 20,000 titles. He even went so far as to kidnap one of South Korea's leading directors and his then ex-wife (who later remarried) to reinvigorate his country's movie industry.

That effort failed as the couple eventually escaped back to South Korea, and North Korean films remained hostage to the ideological straitjacket that ensured that their only audience was a captive one.