Im Heung-soon

Directing

Im Heung-soon

Born

1969-05-10 (57)

Place of birth

South Korea

Known for

Directing

Credits

10 titles

M Heung-soon was born in Seoul in 1969. Currently, IM is working between Seoul and Jeju as a visual artist and filmmaker. His works deconstruct and expand the genres of visual art and film. IM has been organizing and producing works in diverse forms, crossing the areas of documentary film as contemporary art and public art, individual and collaborative works, exhibition space and theater, and sites of everyday life. IM started a career as an artist in 1998 and held a total of sixteen solo exhibitions. His major solo exhibitions include Reincarnation (MoMA PS1, 2015), Things that Do Us Part (MMCA Hyundai Motor Series, MMCA, 2017), Ghost Guide (The Page Gallery, 2019), Title Match: IM Heung-so…

Known for

Factory Complex poster
7.8

The drastic economic development in South Korea once surprised the rest of the world. However, behind of it was an oppression the marginalized female laborers had to endure. The film invites us to the lives of the working class women engaged in the textile industry of the 1960s, all the way through the stories of flight attendants, cashiers, and non-regular workers of today. As we encounter the vista of female factory workers in Cambodia that poignantly resembles the labor history of Korea, the form of labor changes its appearance but the essence of the bread-and-butter question remains still.

Factory Complex

2015

Jeju Prayer poster
NR

Focusing on Mrs. Kang Sang-hee’s life, she lost her husband in the Jeju Uprising (March 3rd, 1948). The film views the dark-side of Jeju Island, a huge grave, which is completely opposite of the other side of the island, the famous tourist attraction. It says that the tragedy has been going on about the recent Gang-jeong village situation.

Jeju Prayer

2013

Ryeohaeng poster
NR

A group of women climbs a summer mountain situated in South Korea. They are refugees who have settled into South Korean society after fleeing from North Korea. For them, climbing the mountains has been an unavoidable journey for survival - a matter of life and death.

Ryeohaeng

2019

Good Light, Good Air poster
NR

The title Good Light, Good Air is oddly paradoxical. Keenly working at the point where his artistic identity and persistent attention on modern Korean history meet, director Im in this film focused on where the history of oppression and struggle intersect between Gwangju and Buenos Aires. In both cities, a great number of people who fought against the dictatorship were slaughtered and disappeared. The people of both societies still live with that trauma. When the testimonies of the victims of the two cities cross over, the film gives us chills as the eerie history of the two is very similar. Through Good Light, Good Air, director Im asks us how we will remember the past from where we stand right now.

Good Light, Good Air

2021

Things That Do Us Part poster
NR

Things That Do Us Part is a documentary that reframes the stories of three women fighters who dove into a tragic war in modern Korean history, using witness statements and reenactments.

Things That Do Us Part

2019

Memories Showers Seas poster
NR

The late Kim Dong-il, a Jeju April 3 refugee in Japan, left behind over 2,000 crocheted items and pieces of clothing that preserved her memories, identity, and history. As the film traces the redistribution of her belongings, it illuminates the still-unhealed lives of various Zainichi Koreans who lived through the same era, sharing and connecting their intertwined memories.

Memories Showers Seas

2025

Behind the camera

Factory Complex poster
7.8

The drastic economic development in South Korea once surprised the rest of the world. However, behind of it was an oppression the marginalized female laborers had to endure. The film invites us to the lives of the working class women engaged in the textile industry of the 1960s, all the way through the stories of flight attendants, cashiers, and non-regular workers of today. As we encounter the vista of female factory workers in Cambodia that poignantly resembles the labor history of Korea, the form of labor changes its appearance but the essence of the bread-and-butter question remains still.

Factory Complex

2015

Jeju Prayer poster
NR

Focusing on Mrs. Kang Sang-hee’s life, she lost her husband in the Jeju Uprising (March 3rd, 1948). The film views the dark-side of Jeju Island, a huge grave, which is completely opposite of the other side of the island, the famous tourist attraction. It says that the tragedy has been going on about the recent Gang-jeong village situation.

Jeju Prayer

2013

Jeju Prayer poster
NR

Focusing on Mrs. Kang Sang-hee’s life, she lost her husband in the Jeju Uprising (March 3rd, 1948). The film views the dark-side of Jeju Island, a huge grave, which is completely opposite of the other side of the island, the famous tourist attraction. It says that the tragedy has been going on about the recent Gang-jeong village situation.

Jeju Prayer

2013

Ryeohaeng poster
NR

A group of women climbs a summer mountain situated in South Korea. They are refugees who have settled into South Korean society after fleeing from North Korea. For them, climbing the mountains has been an unavoidable journey for survival - a matter of life and death.

Ryeohaeng

2019

Good Light, Good Air poster
NR

The title Good Light, Good Air is oddly paradoxical. Keenly working at the point where his artistic identity and persistent attention on modern Korean history meet, director Im in this film focused on where the history of oppression and struggle intersect between Gwangju and Buenos Aires. In both cities, a great number of people who fought against the dictatorship were slaughtered and disappeared. The people of both societies still live with that trauma. When the testimonies of the victims of the two cities cross over, the film gives us chills as the eerie history of the two is very similar. Through Good Light, Good Air, director Im asks us how we will remember the past from where we stand right now.

Good Light, Good Air

2021

Things That Do Us Part poster
NR

Things That Do Us Part is a documentary that reframes the stories of three women fighters who dove into a tragic war in modern Korean history, using witness statements and reenactments.

Things That Do Us Part

2019

Memories Showers Seas poster
NR

The late Kim Dong-il, a Jeju April 3 refugee in Japan, left behind over 2,000 crocheted items and pieces of clothing that preserved her memories, identity, and history. As the film traces the redistribution of her belongings, it illuminates the still-unhealed lives of various Zainichi Koreans who lived through the same era, sharing and connecting their intertwined memories.

Memories Showers Seas

2025

No artwork available
NR

The bride and groom kiss at the wedding hall. Not all the guests are wearing masks. A, who is in a field of film, reckons it strange, and then B, a friend of A, tells him the pandemic has been completely over and asks A how could not know it. At that moment, A wakes up from his dream. The situation never ends up, and the world heads toward an unpredictable future for a new life.

Hug

2021

No artwork available
NR

The Exchange Diary is a collaborative film project of two artists, Im Heung-soon and Momose Aya, since 2015. Having exchanged video clips recorded with the iPhone, the artists edited and recreated each other´s work in their own interpretation. The film explores private and social issues surrounding the artists with asynchronous images and sound, and blended time and space.

Exchange Diary

2019

No artwork available
NR

A journey that encounters the dead of the Vietnam War and the Iran-Iraq War. As if in a dream, the film moves along various routes formed by scars and fractures, and mediates the realm between the living and the dead.

Reborn

2017