North Korea has an ice hockey team? Documentary showcases hermit kingdom’s difficulties meshing with other cultures

The documentary follows the men’s team as they head to New Zealand for the world championships

Canadian filmmaker says his goal was to focus on the ice hockey players and leave politics out of the film

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North Korea’s ice hockey team is featured in a new documentary. Photo: Closing the Gap

Published: 5:00pm, 5 Feb 2020Updated: 10:30am, 7 Feb 2020

One of the more peculiar things – and there are a lot of them – about Nigel Edward’s documentary Closing the Gap, is the likelihood of the film’s protagonists actually seeing themselves on-screen.

“It’s unlikely that the players will ever see the film,” said Edwards about the North Korean men’s ice hockey team, who are the focus of his movie.

Closing the Gap, which made its debut in December at the Whistler Film Festival, takes an unprecedented look inside North Korea’s hermit kingdom. The one-party state, ruled by Kim Jong-un and officially called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is known for being cut off from the outside world. Citizens, according to Human Rights Watch, live in one of the planet’s most repressive states.

Virtually all civil and political liberties are controlled by the Workers’ Party of Korea, but this did not stop Edwards from gaining access to film the country’s ice hockey team as they prepared to travel to New Zealand for the 2017 International Ice Hockey Federation’s tier-three world championships.

Edwards, who gained access through one of the film’s producers who has been leading tourist groups through the country and also worked with NGOs in North Korea, first headed to the Asian nation in 2016 for a development trip. From there, he and his crew were invited to follow the team from the capital Pyongyang where they train, to Auckland, New Zealand.