"I was expecting empty slopes, but there were probably 200 to 300 people," he says. "Not many experienced skiers, though, so they had their professional ski rescue squad out in force. They looked like a combination of wardens and guides."

When former journalist Jean Lee visited a few weeks later, she told the BBC it confirmed for her how "it's not easy to make friends in North Korea, but sport transcends barriers."

Bonner, who trained as a landscape architect, described Pyongyang as "one of the most beautiful cities in North Asia" due to its preserved Soviet-era buildings and monolithic statues.

"It certainly has its own charm. It's a blank slate onto which you can project whatever you want," adds Cockerell, "unless you find examples of utilitarian, Soviet-era brutalism an eyesore."

With 150,000 seats, the city's May Day Stadium ranks as the largest-capacity sports arena in the world. Construction of marquis projects resumed in earnest several years ago after a 20-year slump.

Bonner also discussed making A State of Mind, a documentary tracking two female gymnasts from different ends of the social spectrum as they prepare for the Mass Games. The non-competitive games are famous for hosting the world's largest synchronized mosaic-forming performance as audiences hold aloft jigsaw puzzle-like placards.

For another documentary, The Game of Their Lives, Bonner caught up with surviving members of the DPRK football team. It shocked the world by becoming the first Asian team to advance to the quarterfinals of a World Cup in England in 1966.

The award-winning film captures some emotional reunions as they head back to Middlesbrough, an industrial town in Northwest England that ended up adopting them during the tournament.

One of the players is still known as "The Dentist" by Italians for all the pain the DPRK caused the country during an historic upset en route to the final eight.

The DPRK is not scheduled to hold a Mass Games this year, but Cockerell expects to see a colossal party next summer when the country celebrates the 70th anniversary of the end of Japanese colonial rule.

Probably not a bad time to book your trip.