Movie coming based on "The Aquariums of Pyongyang"

A defector's book about his decade-long ordeal in a North Korean prison camp is to be made into a film. A South Korean film maker said it would co-produce "The Aquariums of Pyongyang" with its US partner.

"Shooting is expected to begin in October this year with preparations for casting underway," Bae Jin-Su, a Cinema and I executive, told AFP. "We aim to put it on the screen in July next year."

Kang Chol-Hwan told Daily NK, an Internet newspaper run by defectors, that the movie would be "a significant opportunity to unveil the true nature" of North Korean prison camps.

Kang and his family were sent to a camp for political prisoners at Yodok in South Hamkyung province in 1977. He and other defectors have testified that beatings, forced labor, torture and other gross human rights abuses were rampant in the camps.

[AFP]