Liberation Day and Laibach return to Korea for Labor Day, May 1
Asian premiere and concert at the Jeonju International Film Festival

Spring and Armageddon is in the air, as North Korean (possibly nuclear) missiles face American (possibly nuclear) warships in a rapidly escalating (quite possibly nuclear) High Noon on the Korean peninsula. So, to paraphrase The Sound of Music’s Mother Abbess: How do you solve a problem like Korea?

On August 15, 2015, with a concert that shook the world, Slovenian ”engineers of human souls” LAIBACH became the first rock band ever to perform in the secretive fortress state of North Korea. Their pretext was the 70th anniversary of Liberation Day, the date marking the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945. Their North Korea set list included covers from The Sound of Music, a film which—unbeknownst to many—is famous in both Koreas. This extraordinary journey and event, coinciding with heavy artillery border clashes between the North and South, was immortalized in the full-length documentary film Liberation Day by directors Morten Traavik (Norway) and Uġis Olte (Latvia), currently being celebrated around the world by reviewers and film festival audiences alike. A TV version will see international release in autumn this year.

On this May 1 (Labor Day) Laibach becomes the first rock band ever to have performed in BOTH North and South Korea, supporting the Asian premiere of Liberation Day at the Jeonju International Film Festival with a big outdoor concert + film screening at the Jeonju Dome. And just like in the North, their playlist will be specially tailored to the time and place:

As if the military tensions were not enough, South Korea is still reeling from its biggest political scandal of recent times, with a new presidental election to replace the disgraced Park Geun Hye only days after Laibach’s concert and Liberation Day’s premiere.

The question is : will the solution be better or worse than the problem?