Assistant Professor

Film & Media Studies

I am a Korean film director living and working in Colorado Springs. I am a graduate of the MFA program in Film Directing at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts). My short films have screened at international festivals and venues including San Diego Asian Film Festival, REDCAT Los Angeles, and Portland Unknown Film Festival.

My work has been exploring characters' internal struggles or mental health issues through an intensive use of cinematic languages instead of exterior action-oriented events and verbal languages. A character may be shown, but not explained; suggested, but not forced to be "read" or "understood." I question the validity of upholding cinema content to a traditional function of storytelling by delivering non-prescriptive, emotionally engaging experiences. By doing so, I invite the viewers to actively make personal interpretations of the films while preserving cinema as a more connective space in a cultural climate where the mainstream demands very little of the audience.

I have recently finished writing the first draft of my feature-film screenplay, The Life Before Hana. The story follows four backpackers who are challenged to face both their own and each other's emotional burdens while working at a small vineyard in the mystical Black Forest in southwest Germany. Each character is from different parts of the world, and represents different emotions: depression, isolation, inferiority, and hypocrisy. The open-yet-confined environment around the travelers operates as another important character in the film, enforcing and manipulating the emotions of both the travelers and the viewers. With this film, I want to externalize and celebrate the complexity of human interiority.

 

 

Regular Classes

FM102 Basic Filmmaking

FM210 Topics in Filmmaking: Storytelling through Sound

FM302 Advanced Filmmaking

FM402 Senior Thesis (Creative)