Director Shin Suwon was born in 1967 in Korea. She majored in German Language at Seoul National University and first worked as a history teacher in middle school. During her teaching career she wrote and published two novels focused on teens’ lives. Finishing her 10 year career as a teacher, she entered the Korea National University of Arts(KNUA) and studied scriptwriting. After graduating from KNUA she started her career as a filmmaker. Her feature debut was 2009’s indie...More

Director Shin Suwon was born in 1967 in Korea. She majored in German Language at Seoul National University and first worked as a history teacher in middle school. During her teaching career she wrote and published two novels focused on teens’ lives. Finishing her 10 year career as a teacher, she entered the Korea National University of Arts(KNUA) and studied scriptwriting. After graduating from KNUA she started her career as a filmmaker. Her feature debut was 2009’s indie drama Passerby #3, which was in no small part derived from her own experiences trying to break into the industry. In 2012, her short film <The Circle Line> was invited to the Cannes Film Festival, where it earned the Canal+ Prize after it screened in Critics’ Week. Later that year, she revealed her sophomore feature <Pluto> at the Busan International Film Festival. Noted for its strong sense of style, the high school-set revenge film earned a special mention at the Berlin international Film Festival before being invited to screen all around the world. Shin’s third feature <Madonna> was welcomed to the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. A dark women’s drama with Seo Younghee and new star Kwon Sohyun, the film screened widely and received the Halekulani Golden Orchid Award for Best Narrative from the Hawaii International Film Festival, as well as the Best Director - Narrative Films Prize from the Wildflower Film Awards Korea. She then directed the mystery drama <Glass Garden> (2017), which was notable for marking the big screen comeback of the emblematic 2000s-era youth star Moon Geunyoung. The film won the Audience Award in the Fantastic section of Fantasporto. Shin’s fifth feature, <Hommage> (2021) tells the story of a middle-aged woman director who is struggling after a series of commercial failures and is one day tasked with restoring the 1962 drama <A Woman Judge>, the debut film of one of the earliest Korean women filmmakers, Hong Eunwon. Starring <PARASITE> scene-stealer Lee Jungeun, the film was invited to several festival around the world such as the Tokyo Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival.Less