VIFF -- Review: School for Defectors

An intimate look at North Korean students in the south

School for Defectors (2026)

North Koreans who want to escape to the south face enormous challenges, not only the physical one of traveling over 3,000 miles through China, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, but also the emotional trauma of leaving their families behind, or the possibility of being killed during their journey, and what will happen to their children if they die? 

There are no statistics on how many North Koreans attempt to escape, but they are desperate for a better life.

If they make it to the south, the next challenge is settling in, as their accent is different, let alone their appearance being malnourished and wearing dowdy clothes, and how will their children adapt and catch up academically?

The documentary focused on this school

In South Korea there are 10 special schools for these North Korean children to study and help them not only integrate into society, but also learn about democracy, freedom and become good people.

School for Defectors focuses on one senior high school which is different from the other nine in that it only accepts 20 students and they all must board; the principal says it helps the children integrate faster if they are not with their parents. 

The audience basically observe a whole academic school year, from the intake of students through interviews with the principal and teachers, to attending classes, applying for university, and graduating. There is also a peek into dorm life, watching them clean their rooms for inspection, and eating meals in the cafeteria.

The principal and teachers are so supportive of the students, praising and encouraging them, as they know their escaping to the south was no easy feat, and that they may feel inferior or insecure, but the students in turn are also eager to learn, hardworking and some of them eventually come out of their shells to be talkative, boisterous, and even exceptional dancers.

The students are hardworking a funny

One segment shows interviews with some of the parents who described their plight to the south, with one poignant scene of a father who had thought of what to do if he and his wife and daughter were caught by North Korean soldiers, while another family had to leave their older son and elderly grandmother behind.

Nevertheless, the optimistic energy from the students, teachers and principal are what uplifts School for Defectors, which resulted in lots of clapping in the theatre when the documentary ended.

Director Jeremy Workman attended the screening with producer and Korean-American actor Daniel Dae Kim.

It turns out I had seen Workman's previous documentary, Secret Mall Apartment two years ago and thought it was a crazy but intriguing story.

He explained that when he was in South Korea screening another film he had made, Workman was asked to show it at that school, and that's how he met the principal, who speaks good English.

Workman learned about more about the school, and was fascinated by it and was eager to possibly do a documentary about it. He got the green light from the principal, and anyone who didn't want to participate was not filmed, or their faces were pixelated if they were worried about relatives back in North Korea.

Workman (centre) and Kim (right) at the Q&A

He said he went back several times to film at the school, though he had a crew based there who filmed as well. One of the students at first was so painfully shy that she barely said a word, but by the end of the school year, she was willing to talk on camera about her school project, collecting first-hand accounts of North Koreans who escaped to the south and compiling them into a booklet.

What was not clearly explained in the film, that Kim talked about in the Q&A, was that the journey to escape was extremely dangerous, not only in avoiding getting shot by North Korean soldiers, but also avoiding arrest and deportation in China, sometimes having to stay there for years to earn enough money to continue their escape, or women being sex trafficked and being forced to marry Chinese men.

Then they had to trek through Cambodia, Laos and Thailand which involved going through jungles, difficult terrain, and having enough stamina to make it to South Korea.

School for Defectors was definitely one of the more memorable documentaries I saw this year, appreciating how much the students and their parents have gone through, and hoping they will succeed in whatever they do after high school.

School for Defectors

Directed by Jeremy Workman

92 minutes