About the Director

Jang Jin (born in 1971 in Seoul, Korea) is an accomplished South Korean film director, theater director, playwright, screenwriter, film producer, and mastermind of the television show Saturday Night Live Korea. He also played as Director for the opening and closing ceremony of 2014 Asian Game in Incheon, Korea.

Started acting in his freshman year of high school, his passion in acting led him to major in theater studies at Seoul Institute of the Arts. He then stared working full-time as a brilliant theater director in Korea and later his career brought him to the top of Korea’s directors. Considered one of the most distinctive voices to emerge from the 1990s Korean cinema renaissance, Jang’s unique filmmaking style mixes unconventional storylines, quirky characters, dry and subversive humor, comic twists, sharp puns, stagy presentation, a keen observation of society, and humanism.

In 2015, the International Film Festival Rotterdam honored Jang with a retrospective. Tony Rayns wrote that the director “is best known for one thing: satire. He doesn’t respect institutions, powerful individuals or dogmas of any kind. He believes, endearingly, that satirical comedy might change society more effectively than throwing Molotov cocktails.”

His recent works include ‘The Ice (2016 / theater)’, ‘Flower’s Secret (2015 / theater)’, ‘We Are Brothers (2014 / film)’, ‘Man on High Heels (2014 / film)’, ‘December: Unfinished Song (2013 / theater), ‘Romantic Heaven (2011 / film)’, etc.

About the Moderator

Samuel Jamier is the executive director of The New York Asian Film Festival, North America’s leading festival of popular Asian cinema, “the world’s best-curated program of new and classic Asian cinema” (Indiewire), conceived and produced by Subway Cinema (and held at Film Society of Lincoln Center and SVA Theatre), a film and culture nonprofit which he also heads since 2015. He is also the founder of Windwellers Films and Citizen Pain Releasing Productions, a film producer, and a partner at the Hong Kong based film sales agency Good Move Media.

Until July 2013, he was senior film programmer and curator at Japan Society, responsible for the selection and organization of all films, series and festivals, and was in charge of its acclaimed Japanese Film Festival, Japan Cuts, for several years. Previously, he was senior programmer at The Korea Society, where he designed and executed cultural programming initiatives including an annual program of public lectures and workshops on topics ranging from foreign policy and corporate symposia to Korean cinema and traditional performing arts, hosted by heads of state, senior government officials, business leaders, university professors, authors, film directors and actors, as well as living national treasures.

Samuel Jamier earned doctoral, MA and BA degrees in English Literature, Comparative Literature, and Medieval Philosophy, with Honors, from the Sorbonne Nouvelle University; is an Agrégation Laureate in Modern English Literature; and a graduate from the Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France. He also completed postgraduate studies at Tokyo University, Japan and King’s College in London, England.

He is of Korean descent, and grew up in Brittany, France.