The animated feature film The Northern Star, directed by Éléa Gobbé-Mévellec, has been selected for the MIA Animation Pitch Session in Rome, one of the key events in the European audiovisual industry. According to Variety, the film is among the most anticipated pitches of this year’s edition.

Co-written with Milada Těšitelová, The Northern Star follows the journey of Polaris, a 17-year-old North Korean refugee. After a dramatic escape, she finds shelter in a resettlement center in South Korea, where she shares her story with other survivors. Charismatic and talented, Polaris quickly draws attention and embodies, according to the director, “a political, artistic, and deeply human story of a young woman caught between two Koreas.”

The Northern Star is based on interviews with North Korean refugees collected by Czech co-writer Nina Špitálníková in her works Testimony of Life in the DPRK.

With this new project, Éléa Gobbé-Mévellec, acclaimed for The Swallows of Kabul—selected at Cannes in 2019 in the Un Certain Regard section—continues to build a body of animated work that is both ambitious and emotionally resonant.

The Northern Star is an animated feature produced by Les Films du Cygne and Hausboot Films, a Czech production company. The two studios have previously collaborated on the animated film Even Mice Belong in Heaven, which was selected and awarded at numerous international festivals.

Following its selection at MIFA Pitches 2025, The Northern Star’s inclusion at MIA further confirms the growing international interest in this ambitious project.