There has been a lot of trade between North Korea and the Czech Republic ever since they established diplomatic relationship in 1949. In particular, “Into the Trenches” was released for the first time in an international film festival. The Czech Republic made it possible to produce art posters for communist movies, and among them were North Korean film posters.

A few North Korean movies that were shown randomly to only a small number of people are still remembered with these film posters, and it is considered a rare collection that was forgotten in the Czech Republic. The North Korean movie posters exhibited here belong to Terry Posters and are shown for the first time in Korea.

The actual interactions between Korea and the Czech Republic happened in the international film festival Karlovy Vary. After the old communist Czechoslovakia collapsed, director Park Gwang-su’s 《Berlin Report》 (1991) was introduced in the festival, and since then directors Jang Sun-u and Im Sun-rye were invited. With an award-winning movie by director Lee Chang-dong in 2000, Korean movies made a small step into the European film industry. “Korean tough guy”(as a Czech newspaper called him) Kim ki-duk made his debut in 2002 and covered about 6 years of his career in a special section of the film festival, which finally made him popular in the Czech Republic.

At the end of every year, a film festival called FilmAsia is held in Prague that introduces movies from Asia. The founder of the festival, Karla Stojakova from Axman Production, nominated Korea as FilmAsia’s main country to open the festival, and in 2012 Korea regained popularity as the main film producer. The festival is held in the main theater Aero and Svtozor in the city of Prague.