SEK Studio
The SEC animation studio ( Scientific & Educational Film Studio of Korea ) is an animation studio based in the North Korean capital Pyongyang. Within the country, the company is known as a children's film production April 26, internationally, the English abbreviation SEK studio is in use.
Formation
The film studio was founded on 26 April 1953. Since the 1980s SEK recipient of orders is about animation work for foreign film productions. 1987 SEK has been equipped by the French company CBR Technical Equipment with modern animation studio technology. In 1997, the film studio appeared for the first time internationally in appearance, when it participated in an International Animation Film Festival in France.
Business
About the products manufactured by SEK Animation Studio films, there are few information. According to unconfirmed reports, it is said to have collaborated The Lion and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series King among others in the cartoons. About 70 companies are world can produce in SEK studios, including South Korean, European and American companies. For international companies, the SEC Studio is particularly attractive because of the low labor costs. So to earn the equivalent of only $ 3 a month, a North Korean animators. According to information from the company towards the ZDF Culture Magazine aspects in 2004, the 1,600 employees of the studio to produce up to 7,000 minutes of film per year.
Several French production companies ( Pixibox, La Fabrique, Col.Ima.Son etc. ) have numerous animated films co-produced by SEC, early examples are the German machining in erstausgestrahlte on RTLplus children's film series Piff and Hercules ( 1989) and the Science-Fiction/Fantasy film Gandahar (titles in the USA: Light Years, 1988), which deals with the resistance against a totalitarian social system.
The French cartoonist Guy Delisle spent two months in 2001 at SEK Animation Studio to monitor the work on an animated film for the French production company Protecrea. His experience is documented later in the comic strip Pyongyang, which has been used also translated into German.
Regular Contracting Authority of SEK is based in Italy and worldwide active animated film production and distribution company Mondo TV, for its affiliate, MIM Mondo Igel Media AG is active in Germany. The SEC produced by animators for Mondo TV series include Pocahontas (1998), Spaghetti Family (2003) and Sandokan ( 1998/2001/2006 ). Also produced in cooperation with the German Catholic television work and RTL children's film Barberbieni (2008) was drawn by SEC in Pyongyang. Mondo TV has in part produced more animated films in North Korea in cooperation with the Catholic Church, including biographies of Pope John Paul II ( Karol, 2008) and of this canonized Josemaría Escriva (founder of Opus Dei, Il Viaggio di JM Escrivà, 2009) and Padre Pio ( Capuchin monk and healer, Padre Pio, 2006), and on mother Teresa ( foundress, Madre Teresa, 2010). In German-speaking produced by Mondo TV adaptations of the children's book series include the hare to Felix and Laura's Star of the most famous animated films that have arisen in SEK in Pyongyang.
From the United States imposed economic sanctions against North Korea and the human rights situation in the country make a cooperation with the state-owned enterprises to foreign partners problematic. The production of many funded by the Catholic Church films in North Korea is remarkable in light of the practice of persecution of Christians in the country: North Korea has for years on the 1st place in the World Watch List compiled by the Christian organization Open Doors annually.