Kyung-Ja Lee

Lee is a Korean American writer and director who grew up in rural Korea. As a child, she believed that thunder was caused by a giant serpent pounding its tail in the deep mountains, a story her mother told her. After immigrating to America, her sense of mysticism and magical allure grew even stronger in her new multicultural home. Lee graduated from AFI with an award-winning short film. She then pursued a career in filmmaking, receiving numerous awards and honors, including the Rockefeller Foundation Asian Artist Fellowship, the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, the Film Independent Project: Involve, and a California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship. For the past several years, she stepped away from filmmaking to care for her gravely ill mother, who needed 24/7 care. After her mother’s passing, Lee returned to filmmaking, as she had promised. She then wrote and directed her fifth short, KANG BLUE, which won "Outstanding Female Director" at the KATRA Film Fall Series. Lee is also gaining recognition for her recent screenplays, including winning the 2025 Slamdance Short Screenplay award, the Santa Barbara Best Short Screenplay Award, and earning 2026 Cinequest's Best Short Screenplay for THE COMFORT WOMAN STATUE. Her feature screenplay, KIM’S MONEY TREE, a magical realism social drama, was named the 2026 Grand Prize Winner of the Emerging Screenwriters Screenplay Competition and a 2025 Page Turner Finalist. Her supernatural horror feature THE CALLING was selected for the Producers’ Showcase of the Producers Guild of America Diversity Project.