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JiYoon Park is an artist filmmaker who makes creative non-fiction cinema, currently based in Seoul, South Korea. She explored temporality through short films ‘The Way We Wait’(2020) and ‘Once Upon a Time’(2020). And through ‘Like You Know It All’(2021) and ‘Out of Place’(2022), she attempted to depict the unfathomable vastness of human mind.
Juxtaposition and recontextualisation is her main filmmaking style. By capturing surreal and unfamiliar moments, she tried to find hidden and unexpected meanings in our daily lives. Her films were shown worldwide in galleries, TV channels and numerous festivals, including AFI Docs, IDFA and Ji.hlava IDFF. They were also nominated for several awards in Cairo Int’l Film Festival, Open City Docs and won an award in DMZ Docs.
︎︎︎works
︎︎︎notes on the films
Selections & Screenings
2023
- Ordinary World, Korean Cultural Centre, Berlin, DE
- Art Support Grant RE:SEARCH, Seoul Foundation of Arts and Culture
- TAPE Collective, London, UK / programe with UCL Film Soc’s Fest
- NOWNESS Experiments / online publishing
2022
- Grants for Researching Int’l Art Platforms, ARKO Arts Council Korea
2021
- San Diego Asian Film Festival, San Diego, US / official selection
- Ji.hlava IDFF, Jihlava, CZ / short film competition
- EBS Int’l Documentary Festival, Goyang, KR / official selection
- Equinoxio Film Festival, Bogota, CO /
official selection
- Otherfield Film Festival, East Sussex, UK / official selection
- Lago Film Fest, Revine Lago, IT / official selection
- Pragovka Gallery, Prague, CZ / special screening
- Seoul Ind Women’s Film Festival, Seoul, KR / short film competition
- AFI Docs, Washington, D.C., US / short film competition
- Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, Glasgow, UK / official selection
- Alchemy Film and Arts Festival, Hawick, UK / official selection
- Echoes of 24th Ji.hlava IDFF, Jihlava, CZ / special screening
- Future Now Symposium, York, UK / special screening
- Grants for Participating in Int’l Film Festivals, Korean Film Council
- Selected for the Ind Film Archive Collection Project, Korean Film Archive
2020
- Women Filmmakers Support Fund, Seoul Int'l Women’s Film Festival
- Cairo Int'l Film Festival, Cairo, EG / short film competition
- IDFA, Amsterdam, NL / student documentary competition
- Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, UK / official selection
- Ji.hlava IDFF, Jihlava, CZ / competition for experimental films
- DMZ Docs, Goyang, KR / short documentary award winner (Dir, Prod, Ed)
- Open City Documentary Festival, London, UK / UK short film award nominee
Education
2019 MA - Film Directing, Edinburgh College of Art, UK
2017 BA - Television and Film & Art History, Ewha Womans[sic] University, KR
2014 Exchange Programme in Art History, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, ES
Programme
2022 a member of Louise the Women - Network of Female Artists in Visual Arts
The Way We Wait
(2020, 11’)
Desperately building against the inevitability of time, a restless young woman is awaiting another upcoming loss. But maybe more important things never seem to be told. / Soon after the director moves into her 22nd house, she gets a phone call that her Grandma, who lives far away, is in a critical condition. Elsewhere, a huge apartment made of sand is being constructed as the tide rolls in, while she belatedly tries to build a relationship with her Gran. As the camera sensitively observes how we wait for the upcoming days, the film embraces the fragility of life, full of uncertainty.
Desperately building against the inevitability of time, a restless young woman is awaiting another upcoming loss. But maybe more important things never seem to be told. / Soon after the director moves into her 22nd house, she gets a phone call that her Grandma, who lives far away, is in a critical condition. Elsewhere, a huge apartment made of sand is being constructed as the tide rolls in, while she belatedly tries to build a relationship with her Gran. As the camera sensitively observes how we wait for the upcoming days, the film embraces the fragility of life, full of uncertainty.
- Open City Doc Festival 2020, ‘Between Generations’ UK Short Film Award Nominee World Premiere, London, UK
- DMZ Docs 2020, Short Documentary Award Winner Goyang, KR ︎︎︎Programme Note
- Aesthetica Short Film Festival 2020, Artists’ Film-memory&Future Now Syumposum 2021 by Aesthetica Magazine York, UK
- IDFA International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2020, Student Documentary Competition Amsterdam, NL
- Cairo Int'l Film Festival 2020, Special Jury Award&Youssef Chahin Award Nominee Cairo, EG
- AFI Docs 2021 by American Film Institute, Short Film Competition Silver Spring, Maryland and Washington, D.C, US
- Equinoxio Film Festival 2021, ‘Celestial Bodies’ Bogota, CO
- collected and preserved in Korean Film Archive
︎︎︎ watch the full film on True Story
with YoungJa Kim, TaeYeon Kang
Director, Producer and Editor: JiYoon Park
Executive Producer: Emma Davie
Cinematographers: Julian Triandafyllou, JiYoon Park
Sound Designer: Simon Howard
Sand Sculptor: Jack Handscombe


(The film interconnects disparate images—my grandmother’s hospital, her impermanent house, and the process of building a sandcastle that is not even likely to barely survive from the waves of the ocean. This whole process seems to be a desperate attempt to delay the moment of sadness in the near future as much as possible. It is a film about the coming loss, but at the same time, about hope as well. Losses are always with us even in this moment, but here, by properly looking and documenting the process, I wanted to share that life is not in such an emptiness as we think it is. It was an intent to connect the far future and the distant past, overcoming the current context of loss or uncertainty by leaning on that vastness of time. - director’s notes)
"The short film ‘The Way We Wait’ uses the traces of space and corporeal disappearance to talk about memory and vital fragility." (...) "Through narrative and visual conventions, JiYoon Park establishes the possibility of shaping time through the camera despite the inescapable course of nature: the tide that is approaching." (...) "Imagination, dreams, memories and daydreams are key factors for the creation of the image. From the dream story, the filmmaker weaves the images to expose the fragility of time and being." (...) "In a phenomenological narrative of accompaniment and the moment, grandmother and granddaughter support each other; the past no longer matters and the future will flow." (...)
- written by Daniela Ruiz Cerquera (Correspondencias Cine)






<<Hearing upon the news that her grandmother is in a critical condition, the director juxtaposes her grandmother’s footage and the process that a small sand apartment is built on a quiet beach. There may not be any logical relevance between the two images. However, a loose correspondence can be found in building a relationship in a limited time before death and building a sand house that will soon be collapsed. The two images aren’t just what they appear to be but represent an attempt to compensate for the loss in her absence in the future while the completed sand building alludes to the fact the grains of sand will be swept away by the waves. The film attempts to perceive the external from the personal, and the incompleteness of the present from the present reality.>> - written by Lee Minho(DMZ Docs)
<<Shortly after moving into her 22nd house, Ji-Yoon Park receives a call: far away her grandmother is in the hospital, in critical condition. Too late, the director realizes that she should have nurtured her relationship with her grandmother earlier. “I’ve always been chased by time,” the restless young woman says. “I’ve needed to run harder not to be swallowed.” Now, she doesn’t know how to spend time with her grandmother. “So I was left holding the camera.” In parallel with scenes at the hospital, on the seashore an apartment building is being sculpted from sand—in vain, as its destruction is inevitable. The tide is approaching and slowly nibbling at the foundations. This house of sand mirrors events at the hospital. Sensitively observing as she awaits the imminent loss, the filmmaker embraces the fragility of life, with all its uncertainty. “What I grasp today, easily shatters tomorrow.”>> - written by IDFA
Once Upon a Time (2020, 5’)
A film poem in which human consciousness intertwines with the element of water. The film resists a closed life narrative by negating a reductive assessment of one’s history. / There is a waterfall somewhere without a sign of human activity. Through the shiny surface of the rapid torrent, words emerge and approach closer to the centre. A tape machine whirs, the nostalgia is relentless. The film tactically presents the transformation of water through the use of on screen texts. (watch the full film below)
A film poem in which human consciousness intertwines with the element of water. The film resists a closed life narrative by negating a reductive assessment of one’s history. / There is a waterfall somewhere without a sign of human activity. Through the shiny surface of the rapid torrent, words emerge and approach closer to the centre. A tape machine whirs, the nostalgia is relentless. The film tactically presents the transformation of water through the use of on screen texts. (watch the full film below)
- Ji.hlava International Doc Film Festival 2020 & Echoes of Ji.hlava IDFF 2021, ‘Fascinations’ experimental film competition World Premiere, Jihlava, CZ
- Alchemy Film & Arts Festival 2021, ‘A Human Certainty’ Hawick, UK
-
Pragovka Gallery 2021, special screening with ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Prague, CZ
- Lago Film Fest 2021, ‘New Signs’ experimental film competition Revine Lago, IT ︎︎︎Programme Note
- NOWNESS Experiments 2023, online publishing & watch the full film
- TAPE Collective 2023, programme with UCL Film Soc’s Fest ‘Tracing Entanglements’ London, UK
<<A film poem in which human consciousness intertwines with the element of water. The leitmotif flowing through the entire work is memory, the eternal clash between the urge to look back and the awareness of space and time ahead. The river flooding the film not only gives it a temporythmic structure but is also a reminder of the eternal natural order.>> - written by Ji.hlava IDFF
<<In Once Upon a Time, Ji-Yoon Park juxtaposes a video sequence of serene flowing waters with the filmmaker’s own struggle to revisit her past via running onscreen text. Park’s film deals with self-image, resisting a closed life narrative by negating a reductive assessment of one’s history. The ambiguities of reliving memory while longing to move towards a reconciliation foster multiple temporalities of healing.>> - written by Marius Hrdy(Alchemy Film & Arts Festival)
(Describing the moments when the body and mind become unexpectedly overwhelmed by memories. The words and sentences fragmentarily interfere; the sounds incessantly surge and disappear in a moment; the images keep moving. - director’s notes)
<<A film poem in which human consciousness intertwines with the element of water. The leitmotif flowing through the entire work is memory, the eternal clash between the urge to look back and the awareness of space and time ahead. The river flooding the film not only gives it a temporythmic structure but is also a reminder of the eternal natural order.>> - written by Ji.hlava IDFF
<<In Once Upon a Time, Ji-Yoon Park juxtaposes a video sequence of serene flowing waters with the filmmaker’s own struggle to revisit her past via running onscreen text. Park’s film deals with self-image, resisting a closed life narrative by negating a reductive assessment of one’s history. The ambiguities of reliving memory while longing to move towards a reconciliation foster multiple temporalities of healing.>> - written by Marius Hrdy(Alchemy Film & Arts Festival)
(Describing the moments when the body and mind become unexpectedly overwhelmed by memories. The words and sentences fragmentarily interfere; the sounds incessantly surge and disappear in a moment; the images keep moving. - director’s notes)
<<In Once Upon a Time, Ji-Yoon Park juxtaposes a video sequence of serene flowing waters with the filmmaker’s own struggle to revisit her past via running onscreen text. Park’s film deals with self-image, resisting a closed life narrative by negating a reductive assessment of one’s history. The ambiguities of reliving memory while longing to move towards a reconciliation foster multiple temporalities of healing.>> - written by Marius Hrdy(Alchemy Film & Arts Festival)
(Describing the moments when the body and mind become unexpectedly overwhelmed by memories. The words and sentences fragmentarily interfere; the sounds incessantly surge and disappear in a moment; the images keep moving. - director’s notes)
© JiYoon Park. Embedding, unauthorised copying and replication are prohibited for this video & images.
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Like You Know It All
(2021, 11’)



Kwang-Ja Lee, a counsellor at ‘Lifeline Korea’ has been listening to anonymous people’s stories for 45 years. Every day, she is all ears to stories that cannot be shared anywhere else. Image and sound react to it and creates new reflective space that seems to be the bottom of one’s heart. (watch the excerpt below)
- Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival 2021, ‘Normality’ World Premiere Glasgow, UK
- Seoul Ind Women’s Film Festival 2021, short competition Seoul, KR
- Jeju Hondie Film Festival 2021, short competition Jeju, KR
- EBS Int'l Documentary Festival 2021, contemporary docs panorama Goyang and EBS TV, KR ︎︎︎작품 보기
- Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival 2021, ‘Short Joy’ short film competition Jihlava, CZ
- San Diego Asian Film Festival 2021, official selection San Diego, US
Director, Producer, Cinematographer and Editor: JiYoon Park
with KwangJa Lee Sound and Music: Ellie Beale









<<A conversation with a suicide hotline worker in South Korea plays over footage of everyday life. Text, image, and voiceover combine to produce a stunning and moving portrait of the often thankless work of care.>> - written by San Diego Asian Film Festival
<<A very effective and moving exploration of the role of a telephone counsellor. Good use of abstract imagery which allows full engagement with the subject matter.>> - a comment from the doc alliance platform
(There are no human faces throughout the film. Instead, there are places and movements that help audiences imagine the story of the interview better. It was all part of making intangible things observable. - director’s notes)
Out of Place
(2023, 5’)


‘Out of Place’ revolves around a fictional concept of escaping the earth. It was created as a research process and as a work-in-progress film for a feature non-fiction. Surviving both as Korean and Asian women, we try to escape with a novel voyage from this Earth to another planet. When the bizarre statistics on us and the nonvisualised epic gather on this new planet, the voices from the ones who breathe here with one another form echoes, which continue as a round. There, the voices that this society has taught about us, and the voices we speak out for ourselves, coexist like a twin. At the moment of those two voices intersecting and colliding with each other, an unexpected scenery could be found throughout this entire film. (watch the excerpt below)
‘Out of Place’ revolves around a fictional concept of escaping the earth. It was created as a research process and as a work-in-progress film for a feature non-fiction. Surviving both as Korean and Asian women, we try to escape with a novel voyage from this Earth to another planet. When the bizarre statistics on us and the nonvisualised epic gather on this new planet, the voices from the ones who breathe here with one another form echoes, which continue as a round. There, the voices that this society has taught about us, and the voices we speak out for ourselves, coexist like a twin. At the moment of those two voices intersecting and colliding with each other, an unexpected scenery could be found throughout this entire film. (watch the excerpt below)









hide and seek
(2017, 14’ 22”)
An essay film based on the images and sounds I collected from various places between 2014 and 2017. A woman is looking for the traces of someone she once knew. How can she find absence in the presence and presence in the absence? This film is a musing on time - exploring how the past, present and future are inextricably and mysteriously connected.
2014부터 2017년까지 다양한 장소에서 직접 모은 이미지들과 사운드를 기반으로 한 에세이 필름. 한 여자가 예전에 알던 어떤 사람의 자취를 찾고 있다. 그녀는 어떻게 존재하는 것들로부터 부재함을, 부재하는 것들로부터 존재함을 발견할 수 있을까? 이 영화는 시간 자체에 대한 묵상으로, 과거와 현재 그리고 미래가 어떻게 불가분 하게, 또한 신비롭게 연결되어 있는지를 탐구한다.
An essay film based on the images and sounds I collected from various places between 2014 and 2017. A woman is looking for the traces of someone she once knew. How can she find absence in the presence and presence in the absence? This film is a musing on time - exploring how the past, present and future are inextricably and mysteriously connected.
2014부터 2017년까지 다양한 장소에서 직접 모은 이미지들과 사운드를 기반으로 한 에세이 필름. 한 여자가 예전에 알던 어떤 사람의 자취를 찾고 있다. 그녀는 어떻게 존재하는 것들로부터 부재함을, 부재하는 것들로부터 존재함을 발견할 수 있을까? 이 영화는 시간 자체에 대한 묵상으로, 과거와 현재 그리고 미래가 어떻게 불가분 하게, 또한 신비롭게 연결되어 있는지를 탐구한다.