Justin Jinsoo Kim is an experimental filmmaker from South Korea exploring animation technique and form to examine personal and collective memories, cultural myths, superstitions, and repetitions. He received an M.F.A. in experimental animation at the California Institute of the Arts.
His films Personality Test (2021) and The Far and Near (2023) were screened at the Currents program at the 59th New York Film Festival and at the Experimental Film & Video Festival in Seoul (EXiS).
While at MacDowell, Kim worked on his new film, Guidance by Dokkaebi Fire (2024), which documents archival photos of Koreans taken during the Japanese occupation era for “scientific study” of physical attributes, and Buddha statues whose heads were severed for reasons unknown. In the film, for the purpose of collection, preservation, and recording, numerous faces that existed in different times and places densely gather in a single space. Guidance by Dokkaebi Fire will premiere at the Jeonju International Film Festival in 2024
