Australian film director Anna Broinowski has deliberately subjected herself to stringent restrictions for a documentary in an experiment that must be unique in Western film.

She told a press event in Seoul on Monday she wanted to make a propaganda film North Korean style based on a textbook written by film fan Kim Jong-il.

The result was her 2013 documentary "Aim High in Creation," for which she picked up an old book called "The Cinema and Directing" ostensibly written by the former North Korean leader in 1987. It was given to her by a friend who had found it on a visit to Pyongyang.

Broinowski herself visited Pyongyang in September 2012 for three weeks, capturing people involved in the local film industry. Her stated aim was to make an anti-fracking movie in the style of a North Korea propaganda film in a bid to stop attempts to extract gas from shale deposits in Sydney.

