Kim Jong Il, On the Art of the Cinema (Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang), 1989

205 x 145mm; pp. 329, [3]

Very good condition: spine lightly sunned; covers a little warped; internally fine, noting only a small ownership inscription to the title-page and a few loosely inserted magazine articles

First English language edition, and very scarce, of Kim Jong Il’s treatise on modern cinema – a product of his famous cinemania. The book develops one of Kim’s best known cultural concepts: ‘seed theory’, in which his and his father’s communist teachings should form the ‘seed’ of all creative endeavour.

Kim directly oversaw the production of many thousands of films, often appearing as ‘Executive Director’. But Kim was no mere propagandist – in fact he had a lifelong obsession with Hollywood. Hence, On the Art of the Cinema is a surprisingly important title for understanding the development of the North Korean State, and the relationship between the most isolated state on the planet and modern Western culture.

Although the work has circulated widely, this Pyongyang-printed first English edition is rare, with only a single copy located at the National Library of Australia.