Directing

Helen Lee

Born January 1, 1965 · Seoul, South Korea (age 61)

Helen Lee, a Korean-Canadian filmmaker, was born in Seoul, South Korea, and migrated to Canada at the age of four, settling in Scarborough, Ontario. Her passion for cinema emerged early, leading her to pursue film studies at the University of Toronto and later at New York University. Influenced by gender and minority theories during her university years, these themes resonated in her inaugural sh…

Known For

My Niagara

My Niagara · 1992

Shadowed by the death of her mother, Julie Kumagai's life with her widower father is marked by pained, turbulent exchanges. Indifferent to a break-up with her boyfriend and the lure of a long-planned trip, she finds some refuge in her workplace where she meets Tetsuro, a young Korean man newly emigrated from Japan who is obsessed with all things American. But together they discover no easy resolutions.

Prey

MovieDramaComedy

A young woman falls in love with a shoplifter in her family's convenience store, setting off a series of mishaps involving a lost doll, a loaded gun and a grandmother who speaks only Korean.

Subrosa

Subrosa · 2000

Subrosa traces a young woman's journey to Korea, the land of her birth, to find the mother she's never known.

Tenderness

Tenderness · 2024

In a drama conveyed with great astuteness and empathy by director Helen Lee, a 16 year old's private catastrophe collides with a much larger tragedy off the coast of South Korea in 2014.

Sally's Beauty Spot

Sally's Beauty Spot · 1990

Sally's Beauty Spot

A large black mole above an Asian woman's breast serves as a metaphor for cultural and racial difference in this engaging experimental film. Off-screen women's voices and scenes from THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG parallel and counterpoint Sally's own interracial relationships and emerging self-awareness. A provocative and stylish meditation on Asian femininity.

Paris to Pyongyang

Paris to Pyongyang · 2024

Paris to Pyongyang

MovieDocumentary

A prismatic exploration recounting the 1950s visit of Parisian elites led by Chris Marker and Claude Lanzmann in the newly formed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the communist state that claims the allegiance of the filmmaker’s grandmother during the Korean War.

Filmography

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My Niagara

My Niagara · 1992

Shadowed by the death of her mother, Julie Kumagai's life with her widower father is marked by pained, turbulent exchanges. Indifferent to a break-up with her boyfriend and the lure of a long-planned trip, she finds some refuge in her workplace where she meets Tetsuro, a young Korean man newly emigrated from Japan who is obsessed with all things American. But together they discover no easy resolutions.

Director

Prey

MovieDramaComedy

A young woman falls in love with a shoplifter in her family's convenience store, setting off a series of mishaps involving a lost doll, a loaded gun and a grandmother who speaks only Korean.

Director

Subrosa

Subrosa · 2000

Subrosa traces a young woman's journey to Korea, the land of her birth, to find the mother she's never known.

Director

Tenderness

Tenderness · 2024

In a drama conveyed with great astuteness and empathy by director Helen Lee, a 16 year old's private catastrophe collides with a much larger tragedy off the coast of South Korea in 2014.

Director

Sally's Beauty Spot

Sally's Beauty Spot · 1990

Sally's Beauty Spot

A large black mole above an Asian woman's breast serves as a metaphor for cultural and racial difference in this engaging experimental film. Off-screen women's voices and scenes from THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG parallel and counterpoint Sally's own interracial relationships and emerging self-awareness. A provocative and stylish meditation on Asian femininity.

Director

Paris to Pyongyang

Paris to Pyongyang · 2024

Paris to Pyongyang

MovieDocumentary

A prismatic exploration recounting the 1950s visit of Parisian elites led by Chris Marker and Claude Lanzmann in the newly formed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the communist state that claims the allegiance of the filmmaker’s grandmother during the Korean War.

Director