Liberation Day
Ugis Olte, Morten Traavik, 98 min, Norway, Latvia.Ex-Yugoslavian cult band Laibach becomes the first foreign rock group ever to perform in the fortress state of North Korea.
"Extraordinary documentary" - The Guardian
Synopsis
Under the loving but firm guidance of an old fan turned director and cultural diplomat, and to the surprise of a whole world, the ex-Yugoslavian cult band Laibach becomes the first rock group ever to perform in the fortress state of North Korea. Confronting strict ideology and cultural differences, the band struggles to get their songs through the needle’s eye of censorship before they can be unleashed on an audience never before exposed to alternative rock’n’roll. Meanwhile, propaganda loudspeakers are being set up at the border between the two Koreas and a countdown to war is announced. The hills are alive…with the sound of music.
About Laibach
36 years on from their genesis in the then Yugoslavian industrial town Trbovlje, Laibach are still the most internationally acclaimed band to have come out of the former Communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Founded in 1980, the death year of the country’s founding father Tito, and rising to fame as Yugoslavia steered toward sself-destruction, Laibach have consistently opposed labels of any kind, be they “rock”,“pop”, “techno” or “industrial”. Self-defined engineers of human souls, Laibach can make you think, dance and march to the same music.