HELEN LEE

Helen Lee is an acclaimed Korean Canadian filmmaker whose boundary-crossing work explores diasporic identity, cultural memory, and geopolitical tensions through intimate human stories. Her groundbreaking documentary Paris to Pyongyang (2023) traces an unprecedented journey through North Korea with French-Korean artist Jung Jae-hoon, offering rare cinematic access to the hermetic nation through the lens of art and personal heritage. A pioneer of Asian diasporic cinema since her early experimental works in the 1990s, Lee brings a singular perspective shaped by her background as a Seoul-born, Toronto-based artist. Her filmmaking merges poetic observation with incisive political inquiry, earning recognition for works that "map the psychic borders between nations" (Cinema Scope). Paris to Pyongyang continues her career-long examination of Korea's divided history through transnational perspectives.