Hyun kyung Kim

David and Roberta Logie Fellow and Radcliffe-Harvard Film Study Center Fellow
Film/Video Making
Independent Filmmaker (South Korea)

In Search of a State of Mind

Photo by Tony Rinaldo

Hyun kyung Kim is an independent filmmaker from Seoul, Korea, who is interested in discovering buried emotions and relationships between human beings through filmmaking. Her first feature-length documentary film, What Are We Waiting For? (2005), is about the sad fate of two old women who were separated from their husbands during the Korean War, intertwined with Kim’s relationship with her own family and its history.

During the fellowship year, she will work on a new documentary film, In Search of a State of Mind, about Korean-Chinese workers and North Korean refugees rushing to South Korea to search for their “Korean identities” and the “Korean dream.” They believe they will find happiness and wealth in South Korea, but what actually awaits them is the harsh reality of a capitalist system. Kim expects this documentary to facilitate understanding between people from different political and historical backgrounds.

Kim’s films have screened in international film festivals and cultural venues, including artechock in Germany; BAFICI, the Buenos Aires international independent film festival; Cineteca di Bologna’s Officinema in Italy; the Marseille International Documentary Film Festival; the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; Centre Pompidou in Paris; REDCAT in Los Angeles; the Seoul Independent Documentary Film and Video Festival; and the VIENNALE in Austria. Kim received her BFA from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. She has also directed short documentaries and informational television programs for the Munwha Broadcasting Corporation in Seoul.