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Launching a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 to turn her short film Remember O Goddess (2010) into a low-budget mystery romance feature, director LEE Yoon-jeong could hardly have expected that less than four years later, she would be waiting in the cafe of CGV Wangsimri for the VIP premiere of Remember you to start, with hoards of fans outside. Over time, her modest project (which secured USD 32,293 from the crowdsourcing platform) turned into the first major release of 2016, with two big stars (JUNG Woo-sung and KIM Ha-neul) out in front and the country’s biggest studio (CJ Entertainment) behind her.

 

Shortly before the premiere, LEE sat down with KoBiz to discuss her debut and the unique circumstances behind it.

 

 

I majored as an undergraduate in English literature at Sogang University and then went to the California Institute of the Arts for Grad school, where I started as an experimental filmmaker. My interest began in theater and video installations but I soon discovered that the magic happens when direct. When I went back to Korea, I began as a video installation director on theater and dance performances. That was ten years ago when the scene wasn’t very mature so I moved to the film industry to work as a script supervisor on film like My Scary Girl (2006) and The Good, The Bad And The Weird (2008). Though I moved away from theater, I would like to go back if the right project comes along.

 

 

I’m very excited and also very nervous. I think the magic happened mostly with strangers. When I made the short, I sent my scenario to my first choice, KIM Jung-tae (Mourning Grave, 2014), who was a stranger to me. I was expecting to have to move down the list past my first choice but he accepted it. After that, a lot of my friends from the US advised me to use Kickstarter as a funding platform. I wasn’t sure as the project was very Korean and Kickstarter is a Western company, yet I tried it and I met a lot of strangers who were excited about the film. I learned how making a film is about interacting with strangers. When it became a bigger budget film, I met more strangers. At first, I wasn’t sure about moving up to that level, but when I met these bigger companies, I discovered they weren’t very different from my Kickstarter supporters.

 

 

 

JUNG Woo-sung took part in a video to help us during our Kickstarter campaign and at the time he was the only person I knew who had clout in the industry and who was trustworthy. After the campaign we prepared the production with KIM Jung-tae but suddenly he became very popular and we just couldn’t find a free slot in his schedule so we had to let him go. JUNG asked me about the situation and he asked to see the script. He found it interesting but he thought it wasn’t suitable for him. I was shocked as I hadn’t even considered casting him, so I revised the script for a month. I sent it back to him and he said he wanted to be part of it.

 

 

At first, he just wanted to be in it. But when he accepted the role, the film was more of a mystery and the female part was supposed to be played by two actresses, even though both roles were the same person. The genre wasn’t clear and the project felt less commercial. We met several producers, who felt it was too arthouse. We told them that it would be low-budget and that JUNG Woo-sung wouldn’t be paid but they felt there would be no market for it and we weren’t prepared to change the script for the way they wanted to. After going through this a few times, JUNG suggested he could be an executive producer and work with investors directly.

 

 

On the set, JUNG had to be a producer and an actor so it became hectic, and it was also hard for me to direct someone who was also a producer. But KIM was very experienced and knew what he needed as an actor. She helped things to run smoothly, which I was very grateful for. The audience may not notice it, but KIM knows the emotions of the scenes very well and really understood how to relay the story.

 

 

 

What was important to me was talking about Seoul as a city today. While I lived in California and Philadelphia, I discovered my love of Seoul. I find that the way people live in this city is very different from other places. Very few films recognize the difference of this city, particularly in this present. Its most recognizable elements are the Han River and its apartments. I used to live in a shorter apartment building but these days it’s all about the larger blocks. My parents moved to one when I was in America and I realized that taking an elevator when you go home is a completely different experience. You know where you are but you don’t really know how high you are or how many other people live right beside you. This atmosphere felt very different and I wanted to show it. I used to live near the river and I felt it had some sort of significance that I was obsessed with. I also wanted to show the solitude of the city through these elements. As a romantic film, the conflict doesn’t come from the outer world, it comes from within. 

 

 

I’m not all that familiar with those but I think my influence comes from the Hollywood films that touch on amnesia. However, as a Korean viewer I think people like the dramatic aspect of amnesia. Korean audiences need to find sympathy in the characters on screen and if someone loses their memory, it’s easy to do that.

 

 

For the main male character, I think I was deeply influenced by all of Japanese novelist MURAKAMI Haruki’s male protagonists. This person is a male adult in the city who reacts to dramatic situations without hesitation, as though a boy is inside him. I fell in love with MURAKAMI and his noirish narratives as a teenager. I can also say that I love American and Japanese arthouse films.

 

 

I feel I need to observe the whole process of making and presenting this film. Once the film has grown up, as it were, I’ll know what I want to move on to next. However, I do miss making small films.

 

 

If I could pick one, it would definitely be A Bittersweet Life (2005), which is why I wanted to work with KIM Jee-woon. But last year I also really liked The Silenced. It didn’t do so well but I loved it.