By MALTE HERWIG

PYONGYANG, North Korea - Humor may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the citizens of North Korea, a country known mostly for militant anti-Western propaganda, chronic food shortages and an internationally isolated government pursuing nuclear weapons.

And yet audiences at the 11th Pyongyang International Film Festival here clearly enjoyed themselves recently during screenings of Western dramas and comedies, occasionally even erupting into riotous laughter.

In most other countries movies like Marcus H.Rosenmuller’s “Heavyweights,’’ a lighthearted comedy about a group of Bavarian villagers contending in the 1952 Winter Olympics, would be harmless fun. But not in North Korea, and to prove it there was a man with a piece of cardboard sitting in the projection room to cover the lens in case anything deemed unseemly to Korean eyes was shown.

That day, mercifully, the cardboardwielding censor wasn’t particularly good at his job. His hapless attempts to maintain officially sanctioned decency only added to the amusement of the 2,000 moviegoers in the gigantic Pyongyang International Cinema House, who responded energetically to the sight of a half-dozen outsize German bobsledders baring their bottoms and stuffing themselves with food and beer to gain weight for a competition.

After more than a decade of natural disasters, famine and economic mismanagement, everyday life is not easy for the 23 million Koreans north of the demilitarized zone, which has separated the Koreas since the end of the war between the two countries in 1953. For the past 60 years they have lived under the rule of just two men: the founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994, and his son Kim Jongil.

Mr. Kim, who is known to be a film buff and connoisseur of Hollywood movies, reportedly finances a three-story building in Pyongyang with a full-time staff of 250 that houses his collection of 20,000 films from all over the world. Regular citizens must settle for homegrown propaganda movies like“Five Guerilla Brothers,”“An Azalea Behind Enemy Lines” and “Wormwood Rice Cake, National Food.”

But the festival, which ran from September 17 to 26 and screened more than 100 films from at least 45 nations, including China, Russia, France and Italy (though not the United States, Japan or South Korea), offered a rare chance for ordinary North Koreans to get a glimpse of the outside world.

An estimated 120,000 tickets were sold or distributed at workplaces throughout the city. Such was the demand for tickets that large crowds had to be turned back by uniformed guards, and doors were chained once performances started.

Most screenings took place at the International Cinema House, an imposing concrete structure built on an island in the Taedong River, which flows through the capital. Unlike earlier festivals, this one had no physical barriers separating North Koreans from foreigners - mostly producers, distributors and movie executives - although the official “guides” were keen to prevent any contact with the locals.

Both in popular culture and as a propaganda tool, film is a central element of contemporary life here, and North Korean cinema has its own star system. Famous actors are depicted on murals around the city and even on official currency.

“Kim Jong-il sees film as a highly effective tool to maintain his power,” Suk- Young Kim, a scholar of Korean film at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said in a telephone interview.“For him, it’s one of the primary means of governing.’’

Generally speaking, historical dramas or films from countries like Iran and Bangladesh are deemed less dangerous ideologically here than contemporary films from the West, which would expose North Koreans to a tempting display of Western life and wealth. Even so, the festival came with a health warning. At the opening ceremony the culture minister, Kang Nung-su, cautioned that filmgoing “must not harm the sound mind of the people.”

By all accounts economic difficulties have resulted in a dramatic decline in both the output and the quality of North Korean cinema.
“We are now making only two to three feature films a year,” an official from the Korean Film Export and Import Corporation said, adding, “They’re not very good.’’