Latest news with #KoreanCanadian
Korea Herald
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Interview: Jerome Yoo's dreamlike vision
Korean Canadian director explores diasporic identity through bold, surrealist lens Jerome Yoo bends precisely at 90 degrees, utters a greeting of "annyeong haseyo," then straightens up with a mischievous grin. Dressed in matching blue denim with a statement watch glinting on his wrist, he looks more like a college student on cultural exchange than a filmmaker on the festival circuit. A promising voice in Canadian independent cinema for some time, the 31-year-old's artistic footprint extends well beyond his casual appearance. "Mongrels," Yoo's feature debut, had already collected significant accolades — winning at the Vancouver International Film Festival in British Columbia and securing the International Film Critics Prize at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia — before arriving at the Jeonju International Film Festival in North Jeolla Province for the film's Korean premiere. "I still feel this deep sense of loneliness that I can't quite explain," Yoo says of his current stint in Korea, speaking with The Korea Herald at a cafe in Jeonju. He has relocated temporarily to Korea to direct commercials for corporate giants Naver and Hyundai, all the while developing a script for his next project under CJ ENM's mentorship program. "I get along with people and have friends here, but there's still this division between me and them. Maybe it's morals, ethics or something else. I just feel a misalignment sometimes — me wanting to fit in but not being perfectly acceptable." That sense of cultural liminality finds expression in "Mongrels," a triptych narrative chronicling a Korean immigrant family's settlement in rural British Columbia during the 1990s. The film follows widowed father Sonny Lee (Kim Jae-Hyun), who relocates with his teenage son Ha-joon (Nam Da-nu) and young daughter Ha-na (Jin Se-in) after being recruited to exterminate feral dogs threatening local livestock. Yoo, who left South Korea at 1 year old and grew up in Vancouver, structures the film as three distinct chapters, each focusing on a different family member. "I was inspired by 'Moonlight,'" he says, referring to Barry Jenkins' 2016 Oscar-winning coming-of-age story of a Black gay man. "Barry Jenkins explores a single character through three different phases of life. In that same way, I thought the immigration experience through different perspectives, through different generations, can be so vastly unique. I wanted each character to have a voice, an experience and show that not all immigrant experiences are the same." The film's visual architecture evolves through its three movements. The first chapter's claustrophobic 4:3 aspect ratio visualizes Sonny's constrained worldview, while the second section expands both the frame and emotional palette as Ha-joon branches out to build connections with friends. By the final segment, Yoo employs a fully panoramic 16:9 widescreen frame filled with dreamlike imagery — a visual counterpoint to the earlier austerity. "Ha-na lives in this world of childlike wonder," Yoo explains. "She doesn't fully comprehend the underlying intentions of the adult world. In some ways, she's living within a dream. I tried to heighten all her emotions — that's why things like the hair-dye scene seem so grotesque and absurd. Her coping mechanism exists within a fairy tale, which I slowly shatter as this child starts to understand life." The film's most distinctive element is its central motif: the recurring image of wild dogs, which looms large as an ever-present existential threat to the community. Their howls pierce the night with ominous portent and create an almost postapocalyptic atmosphere within the film's period setting. Operating with a distinctly Kafkaesque sensibility, this conceit opens up rich allegorical possibilities for the film at large — about outsiders, about survival, about race relations and history — by dint of its sheer outlandishness. "The dogs parallel the family," Yoo says. "They mirror outsiders, the misunderstood, immigrants just trying to find their way, trying to survive in unfamiliar lands. It's a dog-eat-dog world — that phrase was big in my mind while working on this. Even amongst immigrants, it's survival of the fittest." The metaphor carries additional weight through historical stereotypes. "I have this complicated feeling growing up in Canada where I was sometimes teased with the stereotype of Koreans eating dogs," Yoo adds. "When I heard this as an elementary student, it left a deep impression." Casting choices provide essential authenticity to Yoo's vision. The director bypassed Canada's Korean diaspora actors, seeking performers directly from Korea instead. "I knew that if I wanted to make it authentic, I needed actors who feel less comfortable in English," he explains. This search led him to Kim Jae-hyun, who had left acting behind many years back and now lives essentially off the grid in rural Ulsan. "He didn't have a phone at the time, so we had to track him down through connections," Yoo says. "When I saw his photo, I knew immediately he was who I needed." For the daughter Ha-na, Yoo cast first-time actor Jin Se-in, whose father had actually applied for the role of Sonny. "When we placed the camera in front of Se-in, I saw she has one of the most soulful looks — this face where you can project whatever emotion you want." Another stylistic hallmark of the film manifests through ritual and folkloric iconography, which Yoo weaves extensively throughout the narrative. The director explains how he drew from childhood memories to create moments where Korean folk traditions punctuate the otherwise foreign setting. "My grandmother would burn things in the house, put talismans on the front door to keep spirits away," he recalls. "Before we'd go hiking up a Canadian mountain, she'd say there's a Korean mountain spirit in this Canadian mountain." As "Mongrels" screens for Korean audiences, a palpable nervousness washes over Yoo. "The Korean audience is the one I fear the most," he says. "I grew up abroad with very limited visits to Korea. It's this feeling of knowing I am Korean and wanting to be accepted." Still, that vulnerability hardly seems to dampen his bold instincts as a filmmaker. "With 'Mongrels,' I was fortunate that no one was telling me what to do. I just wanted to throw s--- at the wall and see how it works," he says. "There's one sequence where we cut to this weird scene of dogs in the forest. My editor wanted to just stay on the character, but I wanted to take risks." For all the boundary-pushing, Yoo remains fixed on one thing: that his wild impulses and creative risks still speak to something honest—and human. "I hope that despite the surrealism, viewers find something in their gut they can relate to," he reflects. "If anything, I hope they accept these characters as people they might recognize in their own lives."
Korea Herald
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Korean Canadian artist Zadie Xa shortlisted for Turner Prize 2025
Korean Canadian artist Zadie Xa has been nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize this year for her presentation at Sharjah Biennial 16, the Tate announced Wednesday. Xa is among four nominees, alongside British artist Rene Matic, Iraqi artist Sami Mohammad and London-based artist Nnena Kalu. An exhibition of the nominated artists' works will be held at the Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford, England, from September this year to February 2026 as part of the Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture celebrations. The winner will be announced Dec. 9 at an award ceremony in Bradford, a northern English county of West Yorkshire. The prize comes with a cash award of 25,000 pounds ($33,200). Xa, 42, is known for her powerful installations and paintings that interweave the stories of Korean shamanic rituals, myths and folklore. The presentation she was nominated for, 'Moonlit Confessions Across Deep Sea Echoes: Your Ancestors Are Whales, and Earth Remembers Everything,' was created in collaboration with Benito Mayor Vallejo at Sharjah Biennial 16, encompassing the forms of mural, textiles, sound and painting. 'Her vibrant installation blended a soundscape with ethereal paintings, bojagi patchwork and an interactive sculpture of over 650 brass wind chimes inspired by Korean shamanic ritual bells. The jury felt that this cohesive work was a sophisticated development of Xa's reflective and enchanting practice,' according to the Tate. "Bojagi" is the Korea's traditional wrapping cloth. Kalu was nominated for her presentation as part of 'Conversations' at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, England, and 'Hanging Sculpture 1 to 10' at Manifesta 15 in Barcelona, Spain. The artist makes cocoonlike shapes out of paper and textiles that are bound, layered and wrapped, the process of which is rooted in repeated gestures. Matic — who captures fleeting moments of joy in daily life and expressions of tenderness within a wider political context — was nominated for the solo exhibition, 'As Opposed to The Truth,' at CCA Berlin. Exploring memory and loss through art, Sami was recognized by the jury for his large-scale paintings that represent war and exile shown at the solo exhibition 'After the Storm' at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England.
CBC
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
CBC Poetry Prize winner Kyo Lee releases 1st book called I Cut My Tongue on a Broken Country
A newly released collection of poetry from 18-year-old Waterloo poet Kyo Lee explores the search for love through the lens of a young queer Korean Canadian. In 2023, Lee was 16 when she became the youngest winner of the CBC Poetry Prize for her poem Lotus Flower Blooming into Breast. Now, she's released I Cut My Tongue on a Broken Country, an intimate collection of poems covering topics including lineage, family, war, and hope. CBC K-W's The Morning Edition host Craig Norris caught up with Lee to see what she's been up to since. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Audio of the interview can be found at the bottom of this article. Craig Norris: It's been about a year and a half since we last spoke Kyo. What's changed for you? Kyo Lee: Not much because most of the book was written by the point that I won the CBC Poetry Prize. I did a lot of editing for that book, which actually was quite rigorous. I think it was harder than writing the book. But other than that, I've been doing regular high school stuff, attending school and applying to universities. I think I've been having a couple of months, maybe a year of creative fermentation, as I like to call it. I haven't written that much since I wrote the collection, but I've been trying to be more porous to the world. I've been trying to gain inspiration in everything that I see. Craig Norris: And now your book I Cut My Tongue on a Broken Country is set to be released. How would you describe this collection? Kyo Lee: I think of it as a collection of growing up while trying to learn how to love. It's a story about the Asian-American diaspora and about womanhood and about the struggles, typical or not typical, associated with growing up. You know, about learning how to be yourself really while dealing with a bunch of different identities and learning, trying to love yourself and to love the world while growing up. Craig Norris: Does poetry do that for you? Kyo Lee: Yes, absolutely. I think poetry is kind of a coping mechanism for me. And it's also the way I learned how to survive, how to become myself. Craig Norris: Where do these poems come from? Kyo Lee: A lot of the poems are based on my own experiences, but I also do say that they're not always completely non-fiction the way people expect them to be. Whether that means I'm collecting different images from different experiences in my life and putting them all together. But I also do sometimes just pull from different settings, from images from photographs, you know, other artists. And then I put them all together into one scene. Craig Norris: You also run poetry workshops for teens. What is the number one piece of advice that you give to new writers? Kyo Lee: Whenever I'm asked that, I think often about what the director of Citizen Kane, Orson Wells, said about how he made Citizen Kane, which is ignorance and sheer ignorance. Not to compare myself to Orson Wells, but I think about that a lot, that the reason that I was able to write this book is because of ignorance because I didn't know it was going to be so hard. So I think my advice is to you have to gaslight yourself a little bit into thinking that it's not hard at all. Tell yourself it'll be easy peasy, that you'll write that book in two months. And then once you're in it, you probably won't write that book in two months. But now it's too late to back out. You just gotta start and then see where that takes you. WATCH | Former CBC Poetry Prize winner releases a new collection of poems: Former CBC Poetry Prize winner from Waterloo releases a new collection of poems 5 days ago Duration 0:47 On top of being the youngest person to ever win the CBC poetry prize, Kyo Lee's work had also been recognized by several prestigious literary organizations like The RBC Bronwen Wallace Award, Prism International, New York Times, just to name a few. Now, at 18 years old, the Waterloo-based poet is releasing a new book called I Cut My Tongue on a Broken Country. Craig Norris: This is your last year of high school. What's next for you? Kyo Lee: I'll be going to university next year and hopefully I'll be studying English. I'm going to Yale, I think, well, I'm almost confident I'll be going to Yale. I just haven't committed officially. Craig Norris: Congratulations! You also mentioned that you started writing again, is it poetry? Kyo Lee: I've been writing maybe the beginnings of a novel. Fingers crossed it becomes more than a beginning. I've also been writing a little bit of poetry, but I would really like to explore what else I can do.
Korea Herald
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
'Past Lives' director Celine Song's 'Endlings' gets Korean premiere in May
Before director Celine Song captivated audiences with "Past Lives," the Oscar-nominated film that explored love, fate and the immigrant experience, she made her playwright debut with "Endlings" in 2019 at the American Repertory Theater. Now, one of her most personal works is set to make its Korean premiere at Doosan Art Center's Space111, May 20-June 7. Directed by Lee Rae-eun, the production will also travel to Daejeon and Jeju in June. The title "Endlings" refers to the last surviving member of a species -- a concept Song uses to explore the lives of three older haenyeo, traditional female divers of Jeju Island, and a Korean Canadian playwright named Ha-young (Song's Korean name) who lives on the other side of the world. The haenyeo, who have spent their lives harvesting the ocean's depths, remain tethered to their homeland, even as their way of life faces extinction. Ha-young, by contrast, has left "home," yet struggles to find her footing in a place that never fully feels like her own. Through these parallel narratives, "Endlings" examines how identity shapes, collides and isolates -- personally and geographically. Born in South Korea, Song immigrated to Canada. She studied psychology before turning to playwriting, eventually making her film debut with "Past Lives," which was nominated for best picture and best original screenplay at last year's Academy Awards.
CBC
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Modern Asian Family: Straight Outta Busan by Stefano Jun
A story about an Korean boy's immigrant experience A collection of short cartoons from Stefano Jun chronicling his experiences growing up a Korean immigrant in Western Canada. Having moved to Canada as an 8 year old with no knowledge of English, Stefano encounters culture shock, family love, friendship, and ultimately finding a place for himself in the vast country he has called home for 20 years now. These slice of life stories are a keenly observed insight into the experience of growing up in an unfamiliar place. Full of emotion, humour and surprise, Modern Asian Family: Straight Outta Busan is a delight to read. (From Renegade Arts Entertainment) Stefano Jun is a Korean Canadian cartoonist and civil engineer based in Calgary.
