Propaganda | Slavko Martinov

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The Work of Professional Liars

Propaganda – 2012 | Slavko Martinov

An anti-western propaganda film about the influences of American culture on the rest of the world, as told from a North Korean perspective.

Propaganda is a 2012 New Zealand documentary, propaganda or mockumentary film directed by Slavko Martinov. It takes the view of the North Korean government and describes western media and culture as purely forms of propaganda. Before its first official appearance at a film festival (IDFA) in November 2012, it appeared on YouTube as part of a social experiment, where it was presented as true North Korean propaganda movie. This was revealed as a hoax when the movie was submitted to film festivals by the director.

“This is a film about psychological warfare. A specific type of warfare designed to distract misinform and anaesthetise the brain.”
Propaganda – 2012 | Slavko Martinov

Writer/ Director Slavko Martinov reportedly worked on this film for eight years without any funding at all and with only a handful of associates. Because of the lack of budget, the crew relied on virtual guerrilla marketing, releasing this film on the internet by the hands of a fictional translator ‘Sabine Program' (now the name of the film's production company), who claimed she had received the film secretly from anonymous North Korean Dissidents.

The film demonstrates that marketing, media and big business, work to distract us from the political truth, with consumer goods and wafer thin ‘celebrities'. Even the die hard American supporters (and anyone from the West) should be open minded enough to watch and wonder. This is to documentaries what Aldous Huxley's ‘Brave New World' was to books, when are we going to sit up and listen?