Kim Jong-il loved the movies. After a hard day running the world’s most oppressive regime, the jumpsuit-clad dictator would, according to local lore, repair to his private cinema deep inside a Pyongyang bunker, where he’d select his entertainment from a collection of 20,000 videos. The Dear Leader, who ruled North Korea from 1994 to 2011, was reputed to worship _Rambo, _and it requires little imagination to picture him chortling at the explosions, the macho dialogue, the buxom actresses, the sheer charisma of the vigilante.

Comrade Kim—whose official titles included Iron-Willed Brilliant Commander and Guiding Star of the Twenty-first Century—died in 2011, and yet he attends the movies still, in a manner of speaking. Here he is now, in a sprawling mural on the wall of the Ponghwa Art Theatre lobby, standing alongside his father, the Great Leader and Eternal President Kim Il-sung, surrounded by smiling soldiers and dancing women and cheering masses. Together they welcome guests and delegates to a very special event: the opening ceremony of the biennial Pyongyang International Film Festival.

I’m standing below the mural, staring gape-jawed at the Kims as attendees file into the auditorium. Swirling around me are military men in olive uniforms and half-moon hats, high-ranking government officials with jet-black hair, and hardworking citizens of the capital decked out in fine suits and traditional dresses that look like Christmas trees. There’s also an oddball assortment of foreign delegates from countries as far-flung as Myanmar and Iran.

The communist government of Kim Jong-il’s apple-cheeked son, Kim Jong-un, has allowed exactly eight tourists to attend the festival. I am one of them. We’re a collection of curious film buffs who have paid a group called Koryo Tours about $2,000, on top of airfare to and from Beijing, for the privilege of visiting the secretive Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

It’s a strange time to be in the country: Just three days ago, a 25-year-old American named Matthew Miller was sentenced to six years of hard labor for tearing up his tourist visa upon arrival because of a "wild ambition," he supposedly said, to see a North Korean prison. Meanwhile, two other Americans are languishing in the country’s penal system for alleged Christian proselytizing. This is all while Seth Rogen and James Franco are preparing to promote _The Interview, _the Kim Jong-un assassination comedy that will ultimately provoke North Korean sympathizers to launch an epic cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, nearly forcing the studio to abort the film’s release—which shouldn’t have been surprising, for this is a country that treats cinema as a matter of life and death.

"Let’s go!" says Miss P, our petite headmistress of a guide, trying to usher us to our seats in the auditorium. We’re lingering in the lobby. Miss P is wearing cat-eye glasses and a no-nonsense skirt and blouse, and making clear on our first full day in the country that she disapproves of lingering. "Let’s go!"

Miss P leads us past two young women in flight-attendant outfits offering cups of a sugary carbonated apple drink, and past a bustling concession stand selling cans of coffee, bags of dried banana slices, and mystery-meat wieners. Meanwhile our other local guide, Mr. O, a thirtysomething man with square glasses, a dimpled smile, and frizzy hair that perpetually looks like it’s just been towel-dried, corrals a few members of the group who’ve wandered off to take photos. Miss P looks like she’s about to burst a blood vessel. "Come on," she says. "The ceremony will begin."

The eight of us take our seats together in a row. I’m sitting beside Koryo’s tour leader, Vicky, a sardonic Scottish expat who lives in Beijing and is on her tenth trip to the DPRK. On my right is Andrew, a friendly man with a peppery gray beard who is the number one Tupperware salesman in the United Kingdom. Farther down is Roman, a dreadlocked Polish DJ who’s writing his master’s thesis on North Korean cinema, and Hyae-shook, a Korean-Canadian housewife whose parents fled from the North before the war. In the aisle in front of us is the photo crew: Yuri, from Moscow, secretly shooting for this magazine, and Mark, a bon vivant from Los Angeles.

Koryo’s representatives have told us we’ll be safe as long as we don’t do anything stupid. But I can’t help wondering what happens if the North Koreans find out I’m a journalist. Does reporting on the film fest qualify as "something stupid"?

The festival’s hosts—two women and a man—appear onstage to light cheering. They welcome guests in Korean and awkward English. The ceremony’s vibe is Eurovision meets grade-school pageant. Above the stage is a suspended plastic dove that looks like it’s pooping out a rainbow-colored film reel. A sunrise graphic playing on a screen in the back appears to have been made on Windows 95. The hosts call to the stage the minister of culture, a squat, bullet-shaped man. "During the festival, you will be able to witness with your own eyes the reality of Korea," he says in the halting monotone of a career bureaucrat. "In which the beautiful dream and ideal of the people come into full bloom, as well as the confidence and optimism of the Korean people, who are making a dynamic struggle to build a thriving nation under the wise leadership of the dear respected Kim Jong-un."