Aim High in Creation!

U.S. Premiere. Q&A with Anna Broinowski.

Aim High in Creation! is a revolutionary comedy about the cinematic genius of North Korea’s late Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, with a groundbreaking experiment at its heart: a propaganda film, made according to the rules of his 1987 Manifesto “The Cinema and Directing.” Determined to stop a new gas mine near her Sydney home, director Anna Broinowski (Forbidden Lie$) goes to North Korea to learn from the masters of propaganda cinema. In a worldwide first, Pyongyang’s top directors, composers, and movie stars take her to script rehearsals, Taekwondo stunt fights, group dances, drunken picnics, and a film shoot on a real-life captured U.S. spy ship to teach her Kim Jong-il’s techniques. Back in Sydney, Anna’s fearless cast follow the North Koreans’ instructions to produce a didactic socialist melodrama, full of song and kick-ass fights, in which “heroic workers” rise up to defeat the “evil, gas-fracking miners.” Through the shared love of cinema, Aim High in Creation! forges an astonishing new bond—between North Korea’s hidden filmmakers and their collaborators in the Free World. Revealing an unexpected truth about the most isolated nation on earth: filmmakers, no matter where they live—are Family. Presented with the support of American Australian Association’s Dame Joan Sutherland Fund.