Film screening of the painting "Independence Day"

August 2 at 19:00.

Documentary, Latvia, Norway, Slovenia, 100 minutes
Directors: Morten Trovik, Ugis Olte
Film provided by Beat Film Festival

The film “Independence Day” is a chronicle of the trip of the Slovenian rock band Laibach to North Korea with the aim of participating in one of the main public holidays of the DPRK, for which the group prepared a program of songs from the American musical “Sounds of Music”, their own “totalitarian” hits and famous covers versions for the songs of Life is Life by Opus, The Final Countdown by Europe and Across the Universe by The Beatles.

When at the beginning of 2015, the Slovenian group Laibach announced that it was going to give concerts in North Korea, it looked like a joke, or another performance. Since its inception in the early 1980s, the group has been close to conceptual art and for a long time collaborated with the NSK art association, whose exhibition was held at the Garage Museum in the fall of 2016.

Laibach’s focus is on totalitarian symbolism and rituals. The group proceeds from the fact that mass art is propaganda, and modern pop culture is built on the same principles as the aesthetics of totalitarian states. The use of these techniques has repeatedly led to the accusation of Laibach participants themselves in the propaganda of fascism, and their last concerts in Russia were completely canceled due to the difficult political situation. And now, Laibach is the first Western rock band to receive permission to play in Pyongyang: the Norwegian multidisciplinary artist and director Morten Trovik took over the negotiations with the North Korean authorities. Laibach plays the program from the American musical Sounds of Music in the last totalitarian power, Korean officials overcome fear and distrust, viewers don’t understand how to react to music, Trovik takes it on camera, and all this is absolutely serious.

More about directors:

Morten Trovik (Norway), Ugis Olte (Latvia)

Morten Trovik - Norwegian director and artist. The author of a viral video in which North Korean accordionists perform a cover version of the song “Take on me” by the Norwegian group A-ha; Miss Anti-Personnel Mine beauty contest for women with lost limbs in the war, as well as large-scale performance with the participation of NATO and North Korean soldiers. Trovik himself calls his art a "hyper theater". His film about the concert of the Slovenian group Laibach in North Korea, “Independence Day”, was shown at dozens of key festivals around the world: IDFA, CPH: DOX, Gothenburg Film Festival, Docaviv in Israel.

Ugis Olte is a Latvian director and editor who always remains frivolous, even when he talks about the most serious things. Using myths and fairy tales as a tool for interpreting modernity, Ugis Olte created many music videos, commercials, as well as two documentaries “Stuck in Stikine” (2007) and “Double Aliens” (2015). The premiere of the latter took place at the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA).

ENTRANCE ON SHOW IS BY TICKET FOR EXHIBITION <

Ticket price: full - 430 rubles, preferential - 200 rubles (purchased at the box office of the Center for Photography), World War II veterans - for free