fiction.wikisort.org - Screenwriter

Lee Isaac Chung (born October 19, 1978) is an American film director and screenwriter. His debut feature Munyurangabo (2007) was an Official Selection at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and the first narrative feature film in the Kinyarwanda language.[2] He also directed the feature films Lucky Life (2010) and Abigail Harm (2012). His semi-autobiographical film Minari (2020) won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. For Minari, he received numerous other major awards and nominations, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 93rd Academy Awards.

Lee Isaac Chung
Chung in a VOA interview from 2021
Born	(1978-10-19) October 19, 1978 (age 44) Denver, Colorado, U.S.
Alma mater	Yale University University of Utah
Occupation	Film director, screenwriter, producer
Years active	2007–present
Korean name
Hangul	정이삭[1]
Revised Romanization	Jeong Isak
McCune–Reischauer	Chŏng Isak
Website	leeisaacchung.com/

Early life and education

Chung was born on October 19, 1978,[3] in Denver, to a family from South Korea. His family lived briefly in Atlanta before moving to a small farm in rural Lincoln, Arkansas.[4][5] He attended Lincoln High School.[6]

He is an alumnus of the U.S. Senate Youth Program.[7] He attended Yale University to study biology. At Yale, with exposure to world cinema in his senior year, he dropped his plans for medical school to pursue film-making.[5][8] He later pursued graduate studies in film-making at the University of Utah.[8]

Career

Chung's directorial debut was Munyurangabo, a movie set in Rwanda, a collaboration with students at an international relief base in Kigali, the capital city. It tells an intimate story about the friendship between two boys in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Chung had accompanied his wife Valerie, an art therapist, to Rwanda in 2006 when she volunteered to work with those affected by the 1994 genocide. He taught a film-making class at a relief base in Kigali. The movie was an opportunity to present the contemporary reality of Rwanda and to provide his students with practical film training. After he developed a nine-page outline with co-writer Samuel Gray Anderson, Chung shot the film over 11 days, working with a team of nonprofessional actors Chung found through local orphanages and with his students as crew members.[9]

Munyurangabo premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival as an Official Selection and played as an official selection at top film festivals worldwide, including the Busan International Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Berlin International Film Festival, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, Roger Ebert's Ebertfest, and AFI Fest in Hollywood, where it won the festival's Grand Prize. It was an official selection of the New Directors/New Films Festival at New York's Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. The film received critical acclaim,[10][11][12] and Chung was nominated at the Independent Spirit Awards ("Someone to Watch," 2008) and the Gotham Awards.[13]

Chung's second film, Lucky Life (2010), was developed with the support of Kodak Film and the Cinéfondation at the Cannes Film Festival. Inspired by the poetry of Gerald Stern, the film premiered at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City and has screened at festivals worldwide.

His third film, Abigail Harm (2012), is based on the Korean folktale "The Woodcutter and the Nymph". It stars Amanda Plummer, Will Patton, and Burt Young and was produced by Eugene Suen and Samuel Gray Anderson. Shot on location in New York City, the film was an official selection at the Busan International Film Festival, Torino Film Festival, San Diego Asian Film Festival, CAAMFest, and winner of the Grand Prize and Best Director at Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

In addition to film-making, Chung mentors young Rwandan film-makers through Almond Tree Rwanda, the Rwandan outpost for his U.S.-based production company, Almond Tree Films. Almond Tree Rwanda has produced several highly regarded shorts that have traveled to international festivals.[14] Chung also co-directed the 2015 Rwandan documentary I Have Seen My Last Born with Anderson. Produced by Chung, Anderson, John Kwezi, and Eugene Suen, the film focuses on the family relations and history of a genocide survivor in modern-day Rwanda.

He wrote and directed the semiautobiographical film Minari (2020), which was released to critical acclaim. Chung wrote the film in the summer of 2018, by which time he was considering retiring from film-making and accepted a teaching job at the University of Utah's Asia Campus in Incheon. Recalling this period, he said "I figured I might have just one shot at making another film ... I needed to make it very personal and throw in everything I was feeling."[15]

In 2020, it was initially announced that Chung would direct and rewrite the live-action adaptation of the anime film Your Name, replacing Marc Webb as director.[5] In July 2021, Chung departed the project, citing scheduling issues.[16]

He is also developing a romance film set in New York and Hong Kong, produced by Plan B and MGM.[17]

Filmography

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Note
2007	Munyurangabo	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also editor and cinematographer
2010	Lucky Life	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also editor
2012	Abigail Harm	Yes	Yes	Uncredited	Also editor and cinematographer
2015	I Have Seen My Last Born	Yes	No	Yes	Documentary film
2020	Minari	Yes	Yes	No

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Nominated work	Result	Ref.
2007	AFI Fest	Grand Jury Prize	Munyurangabo	Won
	Amiens International Film Festival	SIGNIS Award		Won
	Cannes Film Festival	Un Certain Regard		Nominated
		Caméra d'Or		Nominated
	Gotham Awards	Breakthrough Director		Nominated
2008	Mexico City International Contemporary Film Festival	Best First Film		Won
	Independent Spirit Awards	Someone to Watch Award		Nominated
	Sarasota Film Festival	Narrative Feature Film		Won
2010	Bratislava International Film Festival	Grand Prix	Lucky Life	Nominated
	Tribeca Film Festival	Best Narrative Feature		Nominated
2013	CAAMFest	Best Narrative	Abigail Harm	Nominated
	Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival	Best Director - Narrative Feature		Won
		Best Narrative Feature		Won
2015	Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival	Best Documentary Feature	I Have Seen My Last Born	Nominated
2020	Chicago Film Critics Association	Milos Stehlik Award for Promising Filmmaker	Minari	Nominated
	Deauville Film Festival	Grand Special Prize		Nominated
	Florida Film Critics Circle	Best Director		Nominated
		Best Screenplay		Won
	North Carolina Film Critics Association	Best Original Screenplay		Won
	Sundance Film Festival	U.S. Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize		Won	[18]
		U.S. Dramatic Competition Audience Award		Won
2021	Golden Globe Awards	Best Foreign Language Film		Won	[19]
	National Board of Review	Best Original Screenplay		Won	[20]
	Independent Spirit Awards	Best Feature		Nominated	[21]
		Best Director		Nominated
		Best Screenplay		Nominated
	San Diego Film Critics Society Awards	Best Original Screenplay		Won	[22]
	Toronto Film Critics Association Awards	Best Film		Nominated
		Best Director		Nominated
		Best Screenplay		Won
	Critics' Choice Awards	Best Director		Nominated	[23]
		Best Original Screenplay		Nominated
		Best Foreign Language Film		Won
	Directors Guild of America Awards	Outstanding Directional Achievement in Feature Film		Nominated	[24]
	BAFTA Awards	Best Film Not in the English Language		Nominated
		Best Director		Nominated
	Academy Awards	Best Director		Nominated
		Best Original Screenplay		Nominated
	Detroit Film Critics Society	Best Director		Nominated	[25]
		Best Original Screenplay		Won

References

External links

• Lee Isaac Chung at IMDb
• Official Personal Site
• Almond Tree Films, Production Company Site

На других языках

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[de] Lee Isaac Chung

Lee Isaac Chung (kurz auch nur Isaac, * 19. Oktober 1978 in Denver) ist ein US-amerikanischer Filmregisseur und Drehbuchautor.

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- [en] Lee Isaac Chung

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