In a no man's land between warm love and Cold War, a matchmaker fights to heal her divided homeland — one couple at a time.

COMING SOON

STORY 

From the director of LIBERATION DAY comes a surprising and deeply human story of love, longing, and the personal cost of a frozen conflict.

An old Korean proverb — nam nam, buk nyo — says the most beautiful women are in the North, and the most handsome men in the South. But what happens when you try to bring them together?

Filmmakers Morten Traavik and Sun Kim journey across the Korean divide to follow Yujin Han, a sharp, charismatic entrepreneur born in North Korea and now founder of Lovestorya — a matchmaking agency with a radical mission: pairing North Korean refugee women with South Korean men.

As Yujin navigates her roles as business owner, counsellor, and cultural bridge, she guides her clients through a minefield of social prejudice, emotional trauma, and ideological tension. Her own North-South marriage serves as the poster image for her work — but behind the scenes, her personal life begins to unravel, forcing her to confront the very challenges she helps others face.

Filmed over five years, with rare access and powerful archival footage, NORTH SOUTH MAN WOMAN is a raw, layered, and unexpectedly playful look at love in the shadow of history — where personal and political borders collide in the most intimate of ways

FILMMAKERS

Sun Kim is a cultural mediator working with both North and South Korea, in projects as varied as Track 1.5 government negotiations, and art, music, and film together with Morten Traavik. Born and educated in America, growing up in South Korea, and now living in Belgium, Sun came to understand the importance of communication through her own displacement and integration processes, and applies a unique methodology to her work.

Morten Traavik is a Norwegian director and artist working across a wide spectrum of artistic genres and international borders. Trained as theater director in Russia and Sweden, the notion of the world as a stage and identity as role play is never far away in his works, as well as a characteristically blurred distinction between art, activism and social issues. He is also reknowned for a series of controversial collaborations with North Korean artists and cultural authorities, as well as being an authorized cultural affairs liaison for that country. His installation Power Games (2012) made him the world’s first artist to exhibit simultaneously in North Korea and the USA , two countries technically still at war. In August 2015 he again made world headlines by bringing alternative rock’n’roll to North Korea in the form of ex-Yugoslavian industrial band Laibach. He both starred in, co-directed and co-produced the award-winning international hit documentary Liberation Day (Latvia/ Norway 2016) about those now legendary concerts.

REVIEWS

"Clear-eyed and illuminating" - Screen International

"Impressive and inspiring" - InDaily

"An engaging and edgy story out of a strong topic” - Cineuropa

“An astonishing document of the resilience of the human heart” - Movies We Texted About

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