Mick Hartley

It’s a tough life, being a North Korean TV drama producer. From the Daily NK:

North Korea’s state film authority has issued a sweeping directive ordering its television drama production unit to make shows more entertaining and modern while tightening ideological controls across every element of production, sending writers and directors into a state of acute anxiety.

A source in Pyongyang told Daily NK that a “No. 1 directive,” a term denoting a supreme leader-level order carrying the highest degree of political authority, was issued in early May to the television drama production studio of the State Film Bureau, which oversees all film and drama production in North Korea and is located in the Moranbong district of Pyongyang. The directive sets out an entirely new framework for drama creation. “Everyone is gripped by fear that they will be held responsible if this directive is not properly carried out,” the source said.

On May 5, a solemn all-hands meeting was held in the bureau’s main conference room, attended by directors, writers, and other key creative personnel. An official from the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Korean Workers’ Party central committee, North Korea’s primary organ for managing ideology and culture, delivered the directive and framed drama production as “an invisible war defending against the ideological and cultural infiltration of imperialists.” All ongoing productions were ordered to be fully realigned with the new directive’s requirements.

The directive’s contents span every stage and element of drama-making. Writers and directors are instructed to abandon the formulaic, ideologically rigid storytelling structures that have long characterized North Korean television drama and instead produce work with popular appeal, dimensional characters, and engaging narratives that draw viewers to their screens voluntarily. Dramas should depict the realistic everyday lives of ordinary North Koreans and allow protagonists to express inner conflict in a natural way, rather than simply embodying revolutionary loyalty.

At the same time, the directive imposes strict new standards on language, requiring all dialogue to conform to refined Pyongyang standard speech and prohibiting South Korean expressions, foreign loanwords, and vulgar slang. Costumes, hairstyles, makeup, and all on-screen props and furnishings must reflect socialist values and avoid any appearance of decadence or extravagance, with production teams instructed to establish and promote a modern yet modest aesthetic standard.

Right. Ease off with the hard-line ideologically rigid stories – but they must of course be ideologically correct, and reflect socialist values. More like South Korean dramas, then – but of course nothing like South Korean dramas…