By Eyvette Min
Jim Butterworth is a founder and principal of Incite Productions, a
producer and director of Seoul Train, as well as a technology
entrepreneur. He founded and has led several successful companies,
including an early Internet company and one of the top-performing venture
capital funds of 1999-2002. He is also one of the pioneers in the
development of streaming audio and video over the Internet. Jim holds a
Bachelor of Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute
of Technology and an MBA from the Amos Tuck School at Dartmouth College. Seoul Train is his first film. (Courtesy of www.seoultrain.com)
APA: This film was very eye opening -- is there anything we can do to make
sure it reaches a wider audience, either by bringing it to the big screen
or small screen?
Jim Butterworth: The goal of Seoul Train is to reach as wide an audience as possible. What the policy-makers and people concerned about our goal can do is to make an effort to get it on TV around the world. They can do that by
calling their local PBS affiliate and any of the networks and tell them
that they need to show Seoul Train.
APA: North Korea is known to be very strict about not wanting to show what's inside. How did you get all these footages?
JB: The actual footage you see inside North Korea came from a defector that
risked his life and went back in, and if he had been caught he would have
undoubtedly been summarily executed. The underground railroad was mostly
shot by the activists. As two westerners, we couldn't actually be the ones
going in and shooting the footage because we would have endangered the
others with our presence.
APA: There seem to be no easy answers for North Korea. If the borders open, it can prove to be a huge refugee crisis for the neighboring countries
such as South Korea and China. What would you want to see happen in
North Korea as a resolution?
JB: The key to this whole crisis is China. China needs to respect the international law that it has signed on to. It is a law that China has promised to follow. They need to at least allow the refugees to go to a third country. [China] needs to allow the UNHCR to interview the refugees in China and set up refugee camps in there or a third country, such as Mongolia.
APA: Where do most of the refugees want to go to set up new lives?
JB: They either go to Mongolia or another part of southeast Asia, but very
few want to stay there. Almost all of them end up in South Korea, probably for language and cultural reasons, but a lot do want to come to the U.S. and Canada. A lot of times, once they get to South Korea, they really want to come to the U.S. and Canada because they are ostracized since they speak a different dialect and grew up with communist indoctrination. So they're different people even though they're ethnically one, and it's very difficult for them to assimilate.
APA: What was the most rewarding aspect about making this documentary?
JB: Seeing the number of people that this film has encouraged to take action such as LiNK (Liberation in North Korea www.linkglobal.org). I don't know how many “LiNK-sters” I've had come up to me and say: "It's Seoul Train that makes me know I have to get involved." That is truly the best part about this whole experience.
APA: What was the most challenging aspect of making this documentary?
JB: There were several things that were difficult about making this film. First, it was learning how to make a film and also securing the footage that would tell the story without endangering anyone's life in the process. As you can see in the documentary, activists such as Kim Sang-hun (a retired UN official who specializes in facilitating the escape of “high value” North Korean defectors who can provide evidence against the Kim Jong-il regime for a future International Criminal Court Tribunal), need to be masked or shot from the back because if his identity is revealed, he won't be able to operate in China and they would imprison him. And it might expose him to other agents that might not want him to continue.
APA: Are people in South Korea supportive of your film?
JB: Yes, but under their breath; only privately. They come to me and say: "I
only wish a Korean had made this film." It's a very delicate topic and it's very difficult for South Korean institutions such as SBS or KBS to embrace this topic because it's so controversial; but privately they always thank us. We would like to see the South Korean mainstream media embrace this topic.
APA: There are a lot of third world countries around the world suffering around the globe: what drove you to make a film on North Korea?
JB: That's a very good question. As you can see, Lisa and I are not Korean,
but we don't see this crisis as a Korean issue but a human issue; it's a human rights problem, and Koreans come up to us and ask: "Why did you do this,"
because they find it hard to understand why two Americans did this film about Koreans. But it's a human rights crisis -- we chose this topic because it was relatively unknown and we felt people needed to know about it, and that it would help make a difference.
APA: Is there anything else you'd like our readers to know?
JB: Yes, definitely; that individuals can make a difference, and through grass roots movements, every individual counts -- whether it's writing a letter or making a phone call.
APA: There have been reports recently that 62 North Korean refugees have
been repatriated back to North Korea. What would you advise someone sitting at home who learns about this to do?
JB: Well, first off, I've heard conflicting reports. Some say that they're still in detention camps in China so it's difficult to tell. However, China does respond to public in the press, not really to private pressure. When China is exposed in the press, they'll come around.
APA: What would you say to those people who are against your cause in
helping these refugees?
JB: I would tell them that you have to separate North Korea from the North
Korean regime. The people there for the most part are innocent victims,
and you can't vilify the people or the country as a whole -- you have to
place blame where blame is due and that's with the Kim regime. There is
overwhelming evidence that the Kim regime is a bad regime: they're one of the largest producers of amphetamines and other drugs in the Pacific Rim, there is evidence that they trade weapons of mass destruction, the basis for their international trade is stolen goods, and they starve their own people. This to me doesn't sound like a good regime…but again, you need to separate the people from the regime. North Korea is actually a beautiful country with a very unique culture and rich history.
It's not the U.N.'s place to encourage or promote the regime change in North
Korea. Ultimately, there needs to be a change in the regime's ways if there is no longer a humanitarian crisis and human-rights security threat. The international community really needs to focus on the human rights and security issues.
APA: When you met the refugees, what were they like?
JB: They were very scared. In China, on the border, literally a few kilometers
away from the North Korean border, we met with one family who was living in a camp with about 10 other families, and Chinese authorities had been there
just several days beforehand and had repatriated one of the other families there, so they were very, very scared. We had to be extremely careful when we met North Koreans, especially being westerners, because we could have
drawn more attention to where we were. You can tell from their physical appearance what kind of effect living in North Korea has done. Their growth is highly stunted. As Dr. Chung Byung-ho (Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Hanyang University in South Korea) says in our film, at the age of seven, there's a five to six inch height difference between North Korean boys and South Korean boys. And it shows.
APA: Are you getting government support in America for this film?
JB: Yes; especially with policy-makers such as senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Royce. They are 110% behind the film because they care about human rights.