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

Review: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Imagine taking over a parade to sing Twist and Shout!

Yesterday I went back to my teens and re-watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off which was released in 1986 at the VIFF theatre downtown. The community theatre is having an 80s film festival, showing everything from Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, to Fatal Attraction, Sex, Lies and Videotape, and E.T.

The theatre was hardly full for the matinee, or maybe people were taking advantage of the nice (hot) weather?

Ferris persuades Cameron to take his dad's car

Nevertheless, it was an interesting experience re-watching something from 37 years ago. First off, it reminded me of how young and charming Matthew Broderick was, and how amazing it was that his character could pull off a sick day from school with such an elaborate plan as a teenager.

The other was all the antics he, his girlfriend Sloan and friend Cameron got up to in Chicago, from getting a table in a fine dining restaurant to catching the baseball in a Cubs game, and taking part in a parade -- on a weekday?

It was all a fantasy written by John Hughes, who had apparently finished the script in one week. That may explain why Ferris' character was quite flat, while his doting parents were just characters who had to be there because, well, they're his parents.

The only person who grows in the film is his friend Cameron, who starts off as someone who is sick all the time and then realises he needs to stop cowering in front of his domineering father and grow up. Meanwhile Ferris just seems to want to have fun all the time, and gets away with everything, much to the annoyance of his sister.

Contemplating art at the Art Institute of Chicago

In fact Ferris seems to dismiss Cameron's insecurities and moodiness which today feels insensitive. 

Perhaps this is why Broderick had trouble connecting with Ferris as a character as the time of filming, as Ferris didn't seem to care much about Cameron and his life problems while he hardly had any.

In any event it was enjoyable watching the school principal, Ed Rooney trying to catch out Ferris; he would probably still get away with it using today's technology like smartphones, Uber and maybe even ChatGPT?

What still stands the test of time is Ferris' statement at the beginning and the end of the film, which is very mature for a high school senior -- "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

So true.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Written and Directed by John Hughes

98 minutes

Almost Half of Secondary School Students are Depressed

Many students participated in the protests, some now in jail

After over two and a half years of the pandemic with schools closed and at-home learning from computer monitors has taken a toll on Hong Kong students' mental health. 

We are not surprised.

NGO Baptist Oi Kwan Social Service conducted a survey among 1,192 secondary school pupils and found 48 percent of them had symptoms of depression, including feeling hopeless about the future, or a loss of fun. Some 36 percent displayed moderate to very severe signs of depression.

Pandemic has taken a toll on students mentally

In addition, 51 percent of those interviewed were found to have symptoms of anxiety, such as being afraid of embarrassing themselves, dry mouth and trembling. These cases needed professional help.

Ivan Fang, a committee member of the NGO said mental stress often stemmed from a dissatisfaction with daily life. The students who did the survey said they were most upset about the Covid-19 pandemic, their education and the state of society.

Sadly this will be a vindication for parents who took the difficult decision of moving their families from Hong Kong to start their lives elsewhere. While they are mostly in primary school, these children who have migrated to places like the UK, Australia, and Canada seem to be happy and not dragged down by the severe pandemic restrictions like in Hong Kong.

In some cases parents may want their children to complete secondary school and then go abroad for university, or others don't have the means to leave the city. But with the pandemic taking such a toll on these young people, they probably can't hang on much longer.

Depressed students feel hopeless about the future 

Perhaps it's no wonder that 70 percent of the respondents also had poor relationships with their parents, making the students' mental health even worse. 

It's also not helpful that the government does not value its next generation and instead throws it in jail.

Hopefully these students will address their symptoms and understand they are not alone. Everyone in Hong Kong is going through not only the trauma of the pandemic, but also that of the 2019 protests and the political repression happening now.

It's a lot to process for a teenager, let alone an adult.