Original subtitles

The whole coal-seam gas issue is completely out of control,

and farmers are plaintively asking,

why have governments turned their backs on farmers,

the food producers in their own nation?

Why are farmers being asked to hand over to foreign governments

or to big, multinational companies?

Surely, if you have a process that carries such risk,

there has to be a moratorium until we find out the truth.

Hi, Cathy. Yeah, Anna Broinowski,

from the documentary about coal-seam gas.

Is is true that you're going to drill in Sydney park?

(Hangs up) Hello?

Shit.

Hi. Can I have a hot dog? One hot dog?

Cheese sauce, mustard, tomato sauce.

I live in Sydney, one of the most expensive cities in the world.

We love food, sport, real estate

and just lazing around on hot summer days.

This is my village,

this is my house.

This is Sydney Park, where my daughter plays.

And this is where they're going to drill for coal-seam gas.

CROWD: No coal-seam gas!

The rush for coal-seam gas is a rush for quick profits.

Look at the USA. Is that fine? CROWD: No!

Today, more than 1,000 Sydneysiders took to the streets,

protesting against coal-seam gas in the Inner West.

They are talking about pilot production wells

for inner-city residential areas, suburban areas, beach areas.

God knows where they're going to put these wells.

On behalf of the Government, I'm here to say we are listening.

MAN: Bullshit! Unjustified!

If you'll just shut your mouth for a minute, mate...

I had to do something to stop the mine.

I didn't want my kid living next to a methane-belching gas field.

I've got a bad feeling that it can make people sick.

It makes our water all poison,

and I don't want to get any headaches.

That's true. Well, we'll stop it.

So I tried to make a documentary.

I was just wondering if Origin had a chance

to back up the claims on your website

that coal-seam gas is a good thing.

AGL, I'd be asking, what steps are being taken

to protect the environment?

Why are renewables not viable in the short-term?

Only half an hour. I can do it tomorrow.

All you have to do is present the facts.

(Sighs)

Then it hit me.

When you're fighting a capitalist enemy on steroids,

get new weapons.

Kim Jong-il, the nuclear bomb-loving,

US war machine-dissing, socialist dictator of North Korea,

a propaganda mastermind so brilliant,

he even stage-managed his own funeral.

To me, he was a cinematic genius.

He kept 20,000 Hollywood movies in a Pyongyang vault,

cunningly adapting them

to produce hundreds of genre films since 1964,

using cinema to convince 24 million people he was a god

and North Korea ruled the world.

And in 1987, he wrote a manifesto on how to do it.

This is cinematic kryptonite.

I'm going to use it to make a propaganda film so powerful,

it destroys coal-seam gas forever.

What kind of place is Pyongyang,

and what kind of country is Korea?

OK, so I'm about to go to North Korea.

North Korea? Yeah.

In North Korea, you get stale bread for breakfast.

This is what I have to bring.

A torch for the black-outs, duty-free gifts for the guides

and family photos to break the ice.

Do not bring offensive capitalist literature,

drugs or weapons of any kind, any enemy-surveillance device,

and your mobile phone will be confiscated at the airport.

It wasn't the best time

to be learning Kim Jong-il's propaganda techniques.

(Man shouts in Korean)

Kim's son, Kim Jong-un, was carrying on the family tradition

by threatening to nuke America, and tensions were running high

all the way to Beijing.

Then, one hour before our North Korea flight,

our sound man vanished.

Hi, Brent. We've got your visa.

We need a sound recordist.

How do we go to North Korea without sound?

Here, stop.

Do they understand sync sound? Do they do it?

Hi, Brent.

What did he say? He's on Paxil. It's an antidepressant.

If you mix it with alcohol, it makes you psychotic.

We don't want him to be a liability and get us kicked out.

So there I was - the only Western filmmaker in the world

ever granted total access to the North Korean film industry,

with only half a crew.

I felt like the Japanese professor

in one of my favourite North Korean movies, Country I Saw -

excited but scared.

I was bound for a nation hermetically sealed

from the outside world since 1953...

..a land outside time.

No advertisements.

No internet.

No reality TV.

And filmmaking elite of actors, writers, cinematographers

and directors still shooting on celluloid

in a pre-digital time warp.

The proud workers of the Pyongyang Film Studios,

the most powerful propaganda factory in the world.

We lost our sound recordist. He got sick.

Either like that or like that.

OK. OK?

I hope I collaborate. OK, great.

Here they come.

I'm very excited to be here. Thank you for having us.

I like three things about the films that you make.

First of all, you have a message that the people,

when they get together, can beat a powerful enemy.

And secondly, I like that you use much music. It moves people.

The third thing I like is that often,

your films have very strong female characters.

In the West, they are just girlfriend or wife.

I have a problem where I live.

Many foreign companies are coming to my country

and they are taking gas and they destroy our land.

Now he understands?

I thought if I made a film in your style,

with music and heart and feeling, maybe I can stop the gas mine,

but I need your help.

Please can I introduce you to my cast?

OK.

Thank you for helping us make our short film.

The Gardener is the story of a simple woman

who loves pelicans and tends the park in her village.

When she discovers an evil miner

is going to drill for gas in the park,

she rouses the villagers to defeat him in a glorious battle,

saving the park from venal capitalism forever.

My name is Susan Prior. I love to sing.

I meditate twice a day.

What I like about Kim Jong-il's manifesto is,

he thinks of acting as a noble profession.

By the way, with meditation, it doesn't mean you can't have fun.

Hi, my name is Peter.

I've read your guide.

I'd be really interested to hear

what films from the West you love,

in particular, the ones that I'm in.

One of the things I read was that as an actor,

you must bring a new personality to every role you portray.

If you have played villain after villain...

Go back to New Zealand, shags and sheep.

..how do you bring those personalities in your cinema?

Hi. My name is Kathryn Beck.

I saw Schoolgirl's Diary, and what I got from that

was how passionate you are, and I found it really moving.

I'd like to know if you believe in extraterrestrial life.

Hey. My name is Matt Zeremes.

I think that some of the films from you guys are awesome.

Do you guys do your own stunts? Some of them are pretty cool.

If you do, good one.

My son actually had a question.

He wanted to know,

how does Hong Gildong learn to jump over trees?

He's actually been practising that this morning.

Hello. My name is Elliott Weston.

I work as a wine salesman,

but I also play in bands and do a fair bit of acting too.

If, in North Korea,

I was considered one of the people's artists,

and I could compose and write whatever I chose,

I'd definitely live in North Korea.

We look forward to working with you

to make a great short film.

Hi, North Korea. Hi!

We have the internet!

# And everybody's happy always. #

Thank you very much for watching.

Did you like meeting my cast?

He knows that you were once an actress.

No, not very good.

Yes, it has come from my heart, because I want to stop this gas,

because it will make my daughter sick.

Do you have coal-seam gas mining in your country?

No?

Are you aware of climate change?

We don't live on moons! (Laughs)

I don't know anything.

Clearly, a capitalist like me needed serious re-educating,

so off I went for a dose of propaganda, Pyongyang style.

Our people call the great leader Kim Jong-il, Our Father.

When he passed away, it was the bitterest agony for our people.

Everybody felt heartbreak.

Were they genuine tears?

Of course, that comes from heart.

We can make sadness.

But it's only a model.

When the great leader, Comrade Kim Jong-il,

came to this restaurant, he led the chairs away

so that people can eat standing, because if there are chairs,

they'll sit a long time, talking.

What other food can you get here?

Hot dogs, hamburgers, juices.

But I thought people here were starving.

Yeah, we had hard days, but everybody was united.

People think, not being with money is the only happiness.

We have peaceful life here.

I think that's all thanks to the good policy of our General.

The great leader, Comrade Kim Jong-il,

told us this was the good site for the fun fair,

where our youth can enjoy themselves.

My indoctrination tour left me spinning.

Here was the flip side to Kim Jong-il's evil empire -

a nation that holds the artist higher than the farmer and worker,

giving its filmmakers free cars, apartments and child care,

a culture unpolluted by capitalist lust.

Struggling with a sudden urge to defect,

I felt worthy enough to hang out with my new mentor, Mr Pak,

whose latest film was a pro-atom bomb thriller

partly shot in my hotel.

Yes?

About beer? Yeah, here.

(Battle noises)

(Old jazz music)

(Bell tolls, sheep bleat)

(Warriors shout)

Seven Year Itch.

What other Western movies have you watched?

The Godfather.

Do you do sex scenes in your movies?

Why?

Do you like, do you watch?

I like French films with maybe some erotic scenes.

You make South Korea full of bars and massage parlours!

Yes. Oh, that is our national way of life.

That's why we lost at the Olympics,

and you got lots of medals and we didn't.

Geonbae? Geonbae.

Like this.

Geonbae.

(Both laugh)

Australia!

Thank you!

OK, so, how was it, meeting them?

Quite moving, actually. Really?

They were all so sincere, you know?

I was pretty amazed by the depth of their observation.

I got a real sense of, they were being cautious.

But they were reaching out.

You could see they were artists reaching out to other artists.

They're just human beings living behind that facade.

That's what I came back with.

Filmmakers are family.

These films you're about to see

have never been seen by Western eyes before, ever.

Really? Yep.

Here's a crash course in North Korean movies.

You've got to start with a nature metaphor.

Have at least one kick-ass socialist pep talk.

The capitalist always dies.

Don't they get sick of the same vibe over and over again?

Don't we get sick of Coke ads? Yes.

Are they religious? No.

This IS their religion.

He's God. This is it.

Finally, people randomly burst into song.

We're going to make a film like that.

Our mission is to follow Kim Jong-il's rules

to make everyone who watches walk out of it at the end

thinking, 'Coal-seam gas is diabolical.

We've got to stop it.'

Rule 1.

Kim Jong-il's first directing rule

is that you must make your actors fit socialist warriors

in mind and body.

Aim high in creation!

EVERYONE: Aim high in creation!

So how was I going to get them from this...

..to this?

I had a road map.

Day 1 - make them revolutionary fighters.

'When they see the hero is awakened to class consciousness

and imbued with a bit of hatred for the enemy,

the audience will realise the true meaning of revolution

and why revolution is necessary.'

There lies the hypocrisy in his book.

What's hypocritical?

The truth is not there,

and you're not allowed to find the truth.

There is only one truth.

He's right, but you can't have free speech

when you're running a socialist boot camp.

I had to get brutal.

Comrades, there is a U in juche.

That means all of you are responsible.

In English...

Look out!

On the ground.

When I say 'ready,' you will crawl towards our Dear Leader,

doing so stealthily and together.

Ready!

You've got a broken arse. I tore an arse!

I will develop a revolutionary determination to fight to the end

the outdated, corrupt society.

I'm sorry!

This is not a slogan, this is a feeling.

ALL: I will develop a revolutionary... Determination.

..determination.

Can you say it again, please?

Sum up these concepts.

Viva the revolution.

Day 2 - educate all my comrades about our capitalist enemy.

This is a newspaper from where I live.

All the people here live in my village.

They are very angry about gas.

CROWD: Protect our water, protect our land.

These are the areas which are now open

for coal-seam gas mining across New South Wales.

Which bits? The purple bits, the non-white bits.

They can actually drill along 10km.

If they drilled in St Peters,

they could actually be tunnelling 10km under all those suburbs

in any direction.

This is what the gas does.

This is a gas pipe, and it goes... Yeah.

The pipe goes down here. This is the gas.

What they do is... You know, poison chemical,

goes into the water.

OK, that's not natural-occurring water.

That's not the normal colour.

It gets blacker as we get closer up there.

Potassium chloride attacks clay.

Whatever's leaking is leaking underneath the structure to us.

The water comes up here into the soil,

and we cannot grow any food.

This soil here has been deposited

from the mountains you see in the background

over thousands of years.

It's very fertile.

A lot of irrigation farms,

they'll grow two crops a year on this soil.

They have said that they may need to frac it to release that gas.

You can imagine -

if this is covered every 400 metres by wells...

It would make it absolutely impossible to farm this country.

We can't afford to lose that.

That's what's going to supply our children and grandchildren

in food for generations to come.

So what is fracking?

Fracking. What a delicious word 'fracking' is.

Basically, you pump water down the borehole.

There's little cracks and fissures in the rock,

and we force them open with the pressure.

What we add to the water is guar gum, which adds viscosity.

It's a bit like olive oil.

I've had a taste of it, 'cause it's used on food products.

What chemicals do you use to break up the guar gum, then?

I'm sorry, I don't know at all.

I'd have to refer to my list of what breaks up the guar gum.

Do we need it?

This is another big lie that the Government keeps pushing out.

We have enough conventionally drilled gas

that we already know about to last us for 135 years.

So really, we don't even need to think about this yet?

Correct. All of this is for the export industry,

to make money for multinationals.

Day 3 - develop a passionate love

for the noble and oppressed working class.

I know a lot of working-class guys,

and I don't think that I do love them.

A lot of of Australians are racist and small-minded.

I do feel apart from Menangle Park.

The gas wells have caused us a little bit of drama.

It's likely that another 40 could go in this area.

The drilling occurs mostly at night.

Really? Why do they do it at night?

I don't know, but the whole house was shaking.

I don't know what they were doing underneath here.

What damage is it doing to the river,

what damage is it doing to our properties? Let us know.

No-one's told us anything.

So, the first well they put on the racecourse?

Well, they can't stop them.

The State Government has got all rights to everything.

Have you noticed anything with the horses?

They don't win.

On this property, there's about six coal-seam gas mines. Really?

This is one of the first major ones in the Sydney Basin. God.

Do you know much about the gas wells they've been drilling?

No, only what I hear on the news.

The wells are on people's property,

and this harness-racing club is getting money for that.

I didn't know about that rule that you own the top 5cm,

then they can do whatever they want.

They can go onto people's property and virtually take over.

How many times do they go around?

Just once. Come on, horse!

Come on!

Go, Schumann!

I won! Yes!

I'm going to take back everything I said before

about not connecting with working people. That's bullshit.

I love those guys. They were fantastic.

I do think I do love the working class. I love myself.

Mission accomplished.

My comrades were as educated as they could be

for the mammoth task ahead.

To develop the revolutionary... ..determination

to fight to the end...

..corrupt capitalist society...

..free from exploitation...

..and oppression.

Rule 2.

Kim Jong-il said every great propaganda film

starts with a simple seed from which the message can flower.

So what was the seed of my film?

Propaganda films about the noble people vanquishing a brutal enemy

are Kim Jong-il's number-one way

of keeping his million soldiers inspired.

What would they think was the theme of my film?

I went to the North Korean side of the checkpoint

that divides them from the South to find out,

the most heavily militarised border on earth.

I'm making a film about a simple gardener

who decides to save her land

from the bad, evil capitalist gas miner.

Your country is beautiful, and I love your films.

What do you know of my country?

Thank you. I think I know what you meant.

See you again. See you again.

Do you know any Australian movies?

I got his point, but my script wasn't a tragedy,

and my enemy wasn't America, it was corporate.

So I went to the country's top romance writers for help.

'The ideological kernel of a production is the seed

which the director and creative workers bring into flower

through their collective wisdom.

They form one cinematic presentation.'

Something's really dawned on me. They refer to it as cinema,

for us, it's show business.

That's not true!

We're going, show business. If you were pitching this

to a Hollywood executive in an elevator,

what is our film about?

One woman stands up for all,

and inspires 1,000 people to follow her.

It would be great in an elevator,

'cause with the elevator music, that would have been perfect.

This is the lift, which our great leader,

Comrade Kim Jong-il, used when he visited this fruit farm.

They took out the blood of the turtles

and mixed with juice, and let the children eat.

It's very good for their health.

This is my land.

It's also one of Australia's biggest coal-seam gas reserves.

Santos have been working on my place for awhile now.

They look after the people and the land.

That's why they're always welcome here.

We're a company with energy.

That's a lot of hogwash.

I can't find out, but I do believe

that the holes would be under this property here.

It's just like a bullet hole.

You see a little hole. All the damage is done underneath.

I'm 76. All my life, putting the six properties together.

I thought life was going to be easy,

but now the rest of my life

is going to be trying to protect them.

Do you call it coal-seam gas mining or coal-seam gas drilling?

Coal-seam gas production. Production?

Yes. Not mining?

No.

But not drilling?

We drill to basically enable the coal-seam gas to be produced,

yes, that's right.

OK. But it's extraction as opposed to mining?

Yeah, production.

Unlike in your country, we do not respect our politicians at all.

Yeah.

The green politicians, they want to serve the environment,

but they are not very powerful.

We have elections, and only a few people vote for them.

Do you have elections here?

'Yes, we have elections?' OK.

In your films, you always have a speech about the Dear Leader.

My Gardener script does not have that. Is that a problem?

Rule 3.

To understand North Korean directing methods,

I went to the set of a military thriller

being filmed on a real US spy ship, the Pueblo,

helmed by North Korea's own Oliver Stone,

the cranky Mr Ri Kwan Am.

It was chaos.

Because they don't record sound, it didn't matter

the ship was crawling with cultural-exchange students

the same time Ri was trying to shoot.

Here, this ship invaded our territorial waters

more than 17 times.

The US government, they sent us an official letter of apology.

They also wanted this ship, but we said no, as it is our trophy.

What advice would you give me from this book?

'Acting depends on the director.'

It says, to play a villain...

What scene are you going to shoot with the Americans?

Excuse me. Hello.

Can you please tell me what is your role?

I'm the two-star general.

James Dresnok and his brother are North Korean,

the sons of the nation's number-one movie villain,

Joe Dresnok, a US Marine who defected during the Korean War

and has played Yankee bastards ever since.

Do you live here, in..?

Yes, I am living here.

Oh. OK.

Ri's blunt directing style -

you demonstrate to your actors, then you insult them -

is worlds away from

what my sophisticated Western comrades are used to,

so I opted for a less brutal strategy - imitation.

(Girl weeps)

(Chuckles)

That fat, lesbian dyke, with that stupid garden she's got up there,

she thinks she can stop us.

I want you to go out and kill her.

No-o-o!

(Romantic Korean soundtrack)

OK, thank you. How do we find a happy medium?

Not like that. I don't think that's going to work.

I was in trouble.

Kim Jong-il said, to direct successfully,

you have to concentrate on emotion, not plot,

but our take on North Korean emotion was out of control.

(Screams)

Proving to the venal capitalists

that the people will always win.

This wasn't people's art,

it was a socialist hamfest directed by a lunatic.

I needed a hard-core North Korean acting lesson.

Thankfully, Ri Kwan Am had given me a cameo as an evil American.

My scene.

Like this? Uh-huh.

So, who am I?

Secretary. Secretary? Whose secretary?

Your secretary? No, not me.

He will come here. OK.

A bowling secretary.

Thank you, Mr Ri Kwan Am.

Oh, good. I'm getting eye shadow.

It's good, it's good.

I'm nervous. Tell him I'm nervous.

They're all nervous, because they're doing for the first time.

Can I ask him what a Western actor would ask a director?

I want to ask him, what is my motivation?

He's your husband.

You'll be playing... Which one is my husband?

The one with the glasses.

So I'm flirting with the captain, who's not my husband?

No (!) No.

OK.

Sorry!

Strike.

More excited?

Too small. OK.

Ah! Strike.

OK.

Ah. Strike.

I fucked up. Cut!

I'm sorry.

I looked down the barrel.

(Everyone laughs)

What did he say?

Can I have my husband stand behind the camera?

Ah!

Strike!

I feel like I've let down my country.

The line between director and dictator

is pretty thin in North Korea, just like in the West,

but would Kim Jong-il's favourite director be any different?

Hello.

How are you?

I want to be your pupil - sensei.

(Laughs) Sensei? No. No sensei.

You say you're working for us, but your profits go overseas.

Over my dead body will I let you do that.

You're going to ruin this whole park!

The people in their thousands will defeat you.

Invite me when they show up.

Let's try. Thank you, thank you! Arigato.

Camera.

Stop.

Does she have children?

Of course. Imagine that one of your children is already sick.

Stop!

OK, great.

I'm going to share something that the North Korean director did.

He got her to do this just before the scene,

squat up and down, up and down.

Let's do ten of those and go straight into it.

Sorry? Let's just do it.

Do you want to go for a jog? I'll come with you. Let's do it.

Let's jump up and down. Let's do squats.

Let's really invest in it.

OK. When you're ready, I want you to say this speech

with that energy. Oh, my God.

You say you're working for us, but you have your profits.

You can stop bouncing. That was just to get energy.

We're just having games, playing. Playing, and being recorded.

It's very confronting, not to know the lines

and have to go to that place.

I was hoping you'd be comfortable to jump up and give it a go.

You know - just improvise it. Have a go.

Kim Jong-il loved actresses, both on and off the screen.

He wrote pages about different ways to inspire them.

I desperately hoped I could make the physical approach work

with a different comrade.

If you were playing Sally, how would you prepare for that role?

Matt and Kathryn, I'm at the Pyongyang Tae Kwon Do dojo.

They've just worked out three fights for you guys.

You can choose which one you want to do for our short.

That's so cool! That was nuts!

So that's the move.

You can come around, catch, go on one knee.

Yeah. That's perfect.

Catch, and swing it down and around.

You're going to pull him over and around.

You'll jab.

Jab, cross. OK? Let's go.

Lunge and cross. That leg.

Ha!

Where are you from?

Up north. To do what?

You wouldn't understand unless you had an engineering degree.

OK, great.

Kathryn, I want you to run around the building.

OK. Faster!

Hurry the fudge up!

OK, go! Let's go into the scene.

Up north. To do what?

BOTH: Cut!

Rule 4.

When Kim Jong-il needed to inspire his working-class heroines,

he'd take them to factories and cooperative farms

to research their roles.

So I took Susan to one of Queensland's biggest gas fields.

This is QGC on this side of the property,

which is British Gas,

or I sometimes prefer to call them Bastard Gas.

Then the other side of the property is Origin Energy.

I always love the APPEA standing up and saying,

'These are half the size of a tennis court.'

Everything you hear from this industry is bullshit.

Get the tape measure out - that's not a tennis court,

not unless you're a giant.

So what we're seeing here is

the toxic gases that China doesn't want.

They burn the toxins that can't be exported

out through that stack.

Directly over the other side of that tree line

is a massive pond that Origin have

for their product water.

You will find Origin cannot produce clean water

to pump into the Condamine River.

They'll spin you the spin because of this.

That's the only reason.

There's something wrong

when your rural countryside turns into this rubbish

so that multinationals can become multi, multibillionaires

and we can become sick, as my grandchildren already are.

We probably were here till about 2006

before our first contact with coal-seam gas,

which was sold to us at that point in time as natural gas.

When they started talking five wells,

we knew we were going into an industrial zone,

and we didn't want that.

The minute that we said no, we were told that

they would cut our gate and come on and drill anyway.

The methane was trapped in the coal seam.

They took the water out.

The methane is mobilised, and it's finding a way out.

Can you smell that?

You can't smell it... Yeah.

..but what it does, it causes really bad eye irritation

and quite often, asthma-type symptoms.

The first thing we noticed was, the kids had a bath,

and everything that was in the water of the little kids

was burned, like a red-raw, chemical burn.

It was then we realised we'd have to abandon using the bore.

It's a whole heap of things.

I've had to keep a diary

to keep up with what's wrong with everyone.

The chest pains... My girl should not be getting chest pains.

Where does that come from?

It's joint pains as well.

You wake up and you'll be paralysed.

We don't know what that is.

I can't keep giving him medication, giving him Panadol.

When your children are getting sick and not getting better,

you start asking those questions.

And what do the doctors say?

We've all got the flu.

They said to us that there is no flammable, combustible gas

in the bore, and we said, 'Get a match and I'll light it.'

They said, 'No. We can't allow an uncontrolled ignition.'

Methane is flammable at 5% to 15%.

How can anyone say that's not burning?

(Instruments beep)

You can see all that.

Now, whatever is in the water

actually eats its way into tin cans.

There's the residue of it.

This will ultimately go into reservoir systems,

irrigation water.

We know we're being lied to.

You really feel helpless, and you actually feel betrayed.

This is our temporary accommodation.

We head down here when the fumes and the pollution

is blowing in off the gas wells. Yeah.

It's not quite as comfortable as at home.

It's also really...

It basically...

If I can ever get it out.

This sort of rakes over a lot of stuff, every time this happens.

Yeah.

Jase has developed epilepsy, which may or may not be...

Connected. Yeah, CSG-related. I don't know.

This is... It's OK.

This is really a lift-off point.

A lift-off point?

Yeah.

Before we actually leave.

Yeah. If it was my father,

he would be fighting as much as you are

and he would be lying awake at night as much as you are

and he would be googling, he'd be searching

and trying to learn as much as he could.

I know it would all be based on

his love of his grandchildren and his family.

It's very hard to walk away from your life. Yeah.

I think it was one of the most confronting experiences

I've ever had.

We're creating this film,

and people are actually living in areas

where it's affecting their lives,

and they can't escape from it.

It's a reality to them.

I've never thought about acting for my country,

but this is an opportunity to be a patriotic actor

because of the political undertone of the film.

Have you heard about Brian, who lives in Chinchilla?

Yeah. Do you think Brian's claims that his bore has methane in it

because of coal-seam gas are false?

They're not lying, these people.

I can show you press clippings of methane in water

in Brisbane in 1889.

Keep in mind the example of Texas.

In a country which probably has two lawyers for every gas well,

you would have thought by now

that something would have come forward, but it's not the case.

I'm already hearing knocking on our door,

saying, 'Can you bring coal-seam gas to our area?

We missed out.'

Right. But what about seeing these parents

talk about the effect

that coal-seam gas has had on their children? It's full-on.

You can't watch those sorts of things

without having your heart miss a beat or two. We're human.

My advice is, get good medical attention.

Where I grew up, I suffered from nosebleeds as well,

but it was a different reason.

Would you feel comfortable

having a well 200 metres away from your home?

I don't see that as a problem.

There's some fantastic farmers who tell a terrific story

about what their personal experience is.

The guy in the Santos ad?

'To effectively embody the hateful enemy,

the actor requires a burning hostility towards the enemy.

If he cannot gaze straight into the enemy's eyes

with a feeling of burning hatred,

he will not feel the brutality in his bones

and will forget their crimes.'

If you are playing a villain in one of your films,

do you absolutely have to hate him?

If it's not OK to drill within 2km

of 1,000 dwellings in Queensland,

why is it OK to do it here in Sydney?

For me, it's all be co-existence.

(Laughter)

He doesn't answer the question.

I realise it's an emotive issue.

I realise that you have concerns and that you're worried.

If the exploration well shows that there's really no gas,

that the coal seams aren't thick enough,

then we'll go somewhere else.

His argument is based on money.

'This is what I'm doing. I'm making money.

(Bleep) off, you (Bleep),' but with a smile.

You're selling, you know? You're selling (Bleep).

Would you like a lollipop? Yup.

It's for coal-seam gas.

It's actually a South African company.

The stakeholder is a 51% shareholder in the company.

You should really look into some of the things people talk about,

for instance with solar -

the amount of panels we'd have to use

to burn more holes in the ozone layer.

The coal-seam gas thing started in Queensland,

and has given the whole industry a very bad name,

but their soil is completely different to ours.

Alex Greenwich. How are you doing?

Good, thanks.

I'm really surprised that

we're talking about turning our parklands into mine sites.

How big do you think one well is?

See that flowerbed?

It's about the size of that, maybe a little bigger.

They want to do it to your house. Are you OK with that?

Of course. Tell them that you'd rather go with Needle Energy,

'cause ours is a green coal-seam gas.

They've done fracking. We don't do any of that sort of stuff.

How is what you're proposing to do different?

We've got a different methodology.

Don't be afraid to hit him. Take the badge off.

Take him around the back of the sign

and belt the crap out of him.

Would you like a lollipop? Thank you.

Needle Energy will be wanting you to switch from AGL.

Put a letter in the mail and offer us a discount.

Thank you very much, sir. We will do.

Next time we go out, we must have more balloons with us

and we must have more lollipops.

Rule 5.

(Everyone sings slow ballad)

(Upbeat pop music)

(Sings along)

OK. Fantastic.

I'll just fill you in on this song.

We're quite joyous and happy about our village.

We want to get as much vibrancy and life

out of this performance as possible.

It goes - # We love this village. #

Then the second one is -

EVERYONE: # We love this town. #

Two, three. A one, two, three.

# We love this village

# We love this village... # We'll get to that one, OK?

# We love this town. #

Perfect. Woo!

Now we are going to see Mr Pae Yong Sam, our people's artist.

Just now, he's a little bit nervous,

because he doesn't know whether you will like his music

for Gardener.

I'm sure I will.

Mr Pae Yong Sam decided that my lyrics were crap.

These are the lyrics I wrote.

'The lizard hatches her eggs in spring.

The crow builds her nest in autumn.

The pelican hunts for her babes in winter.

Mother love keeps me true.'

OK.

There are some...

'The lizard hatches her eggs'

is not a romantic image, straightaway.

'The crow builds her nest in autumn.'

Crow... I hate crows.

The pelican... Look, there are birds like currawongs.

Kookaburra? The kookaburra.

They're just beautiful sounds.

They're also iconic Australians and patriotically Australian.

The swamp hen?

(Laughs) No? OK.

Does the pelican stay in the movie? Cool. Oh, yeah.

(Orchestra tunes up)

(Gentle melody begins)

Very beautiful.

Very lyrical.

Pretty flowery.

Yeah.

Which ones should we go with?

I preferred the North Korean ones.

Yeah, because they're more about a...

It feels more like a lyric to me.

There's a couple of things I wouldn't use, like 'fertilise'

with manure. Yeah.

It's not a good translation.

And the affection-permeated seeds.

'Permeate' is not a good singing word.

Yeah, I can definitely sing the song,

but I won't be singing in an operatic type of way.

(Korean pop music)

I was proud of my comrades.

We'd learned the joy of sacrificing our egos

for the collective,

the exhilaration dancing together as one.

The true meaning of the people's struggle

had united our two worlds.

We were ready for the most potent propaganda rule of all -

image is power.

Cut.

What's your movie about?

That's when I saw the connection between North Korea and my film.

This was our island.

These were our soldiers.

And this was the invasion we had to fight.

It was surreal to be on the same ideological page.

Oh, God, I love a leather man!

Alright. This is a rehearsal.

As we got ready to shoot, I felt a huge responsibility,

not just to the park and to my fearless cast and crew,

but to my other filmmaking family, who'd made our cause their own.

Thank you.

Yay!

Thank you, thank you!

Oh, God! Um...

OK. This is a song about a kookaburra.

(Imitates kookaburra)

This is a famous Australian bird. This is a children's song.

# Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree

# Merry, merry king of the bush is he

# Laugh, kookaburra laugh, kookaburra

# Gay your life must be. #

Yeah.

Thank you, thank you.

(All laugh)

I felt touched, but terrified. Would my film work for my mentors?

Would it work in the West?

I took the juche spirit home in my heart

and hoped for the best.

Roll, please.

Camera set. And action.

The pelican is a noble bird,

celebrated from ancient times as a symbol of motherly sacrifice.

The pelican will gouge her own chest

to feed her blood to her young.

Once, I had to be like the pelican.

You'll get square eyes. Leave her alone.

Ssh!

You'll scare off the boys.

Ignore him. Love you.

# Why do I love this village?

# Why do I love this town?

# Come with me and I'll show you the way

# I'll show you what I see now

# Laneways with smiling faces

# Back streets we skip away

# To the beautiful park, to dream

# Easy like a summer's day

# We love this village # We love this village

# We love this village

# We love this village # We love this village

# We love this town. #

Gas?

Heaven-and-earth paired with a roundhouse. Nice.

Teacher... (Speaks indistinctly) ..white belt?

Where are you from? It's complex.

You wouldn't understand unless you were an engineer.

(Chuckles)

What is it YOU do?

I'm an engineer.

Coal-seam gas - clean, sustainable, green.

Smaller than a tennis court,

a Needle well delivers natural gas straight to your home,

raising its value while you sleep.

Now, to ensure your transition is a happy one,

Mr Mitch Pounder.

Ladies and gents, I've only been here a short time,

but I've fallen in love with your wonderful village

and the beautiful people who live here.

I'm really looking forward to working with you all, 24/7.

Yes, ma'am? I hear coal-seam gas is destroying farms.

There's a farmer up north whose soil is turning to salt.

His kids are getting nosebleeds, there's methane in his water

and he's not getting any answers.

Are you selling us something we don't need?

Look, I hear your concern.

There's a lot of anxiety out there about fracking.

It's a delicious word, isn't it - fracking?

(Giggles)

This is frac fluid - 95% sand.

The rest is just guar gum and water.

AUDIENCE: Oh!

It's completely safe.

Seriously, folks. I love your country.

I have koalas on my bush block.

If I thought that CSG was harmful in any way,

I would not be here.

So let's forget those fearmongers.

The fact is, you would be warming your tootsies

in front of eco-friendly, gas, designer fires within a year,

and this village would be the envy of the world.

Thank you for coming.

We're the experts, love.

The SIS drill runs right under here.

Eight horizontal drills in total,

running beneath the village, all the way back to the main hub.

We're starting phase 1 right now,

have everything extracted before they even know we've begun.

What about the safety report? Stuff the safety report.

That's chemicals, that's compression ponds,

that's a full-scale frac.

We're legal, remember that.

Those idiots forget that they only own the first 5cm of soil

beneath their poxy houses.

The rest belongs to me and the minister in China.

(Spits)

Got it?

Got it.

Yes!

(Thunder)

Very tricky. You're a vandal.

You come here, you destroy the land,

you take your profits overseas, and you call me a vandal?

I'll shed my own blood

before I let you harm one inch of this beautiful place.

Sweetie, that's not going to stop me.

The people will, in their thousands.

Invite me when they turn up.

Mum! Ah!

What is that? They're drilling under the village.

She has no idea what she's talking about.

You're lying. I'm sick of it, Mum -

your pathetic stunts, your crazy, old ideas.

He's lying. Not everyone is evil.

Should I call security? (Laughs)

Tell her you're using chemicals.

You're going to frac this park.

I think you should take your mum home

and give her a nice, warm bath.

She's not my mother.

# Tender love binds creatures in the wild

# The love a mother has for her child

# The bond is torn that once linked her to me

# I fight for her but must set her free. #

For your mother.

Ask her to come back, be a happy family again.

Hey, Sally.

Hey. It's safe, right?

Mitch?

I'm leaving.

Come with me.

Sally!

Mum!

How will I make you forgive me?

Help me to fight.

Pathetic.

They've got no proof.

CROWD: Coal-seam gas, we will stop it.

Our community is not for profit.

Losers.

Here's the proof, you prick.

That is the tale of how I, a simple gardener,

united my village to defeat a powerful enemy.

It's a tale repeating itself across the world,

as people rise up to save the land from capitalist greed,

proving once and for all that if you put profit before people,

the people will always win.

Anna - good!

My North Korean propaganda film

did not stop the coal-seam gas invasion.

The juggernaut continues to roll out thousands of wells

down the east coast of Australia, all in the name of progress.

But thanks to the people's protests,

one mine at least has been cancelled -

the mine in Sydney Park.

Sure, maybe my North Korean friends' belief

that the people united will never be defeated

is just the saccharine slogan of a brutal regime,

but their resilience, their humour,

their generosity in a place where one wrong move can send you away,

taught me something.

We're all victims of propaganda when it comes to saving the land.

You can be fighting for change in the free world

or the most isolated nation on earth.

People power is not some crazy, socialist fantasy,

it's the one weapon we share.

Captions by CSI Australia