I was used to always having a stack of Korean television VHS tapes growing up. — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
I'm not much of a visionary guy when it comes to figuring out how to go about my career. — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
I was an art house guy, making little, not-much-happening films. — Lee Isaac Chung Art Copy Share Image
I always loved Flannery O'Conner, and how she's not trying to create sympathetic characters. — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
The films that excite me most tend to be the films that seem like voices that we haven't heard of before. — Lee Isaac Chung Cinema Copy Share Image
I try not to be someone who's preaching a message with my films or anything like that. — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
I filmed my first narrative feature in 2006, a story set in Rwanda called 'Munyurangabo.' — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
But I kind of reframed my thinking, where I don't feel like filmmaking is what defines me anymore. Like, I feel like… — Lee Isaac Chung Cinema Copy Share Image
I grew up feeling like the main obstacles that we were trying to overcome had more to do with how we survive… — Lee Isaac Chung Adversity Copy Share Image
Any time there is a film in a 'foreign language,' in Spanish or Korean or whatever language, it's usually not an American… — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
It's always about agency - that's the goal, always, to give agency to people. I think that's always got to be the… — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
I always tend to gravitate toward the idea of things being human: that this isolation I feel as an Asian American, even… — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
As an exercise, I devoted an afternoon to writing my memories of childhood. I remembered our family's arrival at a single-wide trailer… — Lee Isaac Chung Childhood Copy Share Image
I had some early success with my first film and since then it's been a grind. It's clearly a craft that I… — Lee Isaac Chung Cinema Copy Share Image
I remember when I told my parents that I wanted to be a filmmaker, and no longer was I planning to be… — Lee Isaac Chung Actor Copy Share Image
I remember hearing my mom saying so many times we should never have left Korea. She would see the way that I… — Lee Isaac Chung Fear Copy Share Image
Insecurities and missteps can plague writers and artists who come from rural places. We worry that our provincial life experiences won't gain… — Lee Isaac Chung Art Copy Share Image
My parents, they grew up in a time when there was war in Korea. And my grandmother, her husband, my grandfather, was… — Lee Isaac Chung Elementary school Copy Share Image
Among Korean immigrants the majority tends to be Christian, because that was the way they immigrated to America - through the support… — Lee Isaac Chung America Copy Share Image
I felt like I was growing up with two different churches, in a sense. And that's always stayed with me - not… — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
I think one of the things that I had to establish for myself quite early on was the rule that this is… — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
Growing up, the question of faith and the question of God, specifically with Christianity, has been something that's informed me quite a… — Lee Isaac Chung America Copy Share Image
I went to Rwanda with my wife who had been going for the past three summers. She is an art therapist who… — Lee Isaac Chung Art Copy Share Image
Most of my friends were white. I grew up really the only minority in my school, along with my sister. — Lee Isaac Chung Friends Copy Share Image
I wanted to make something that transcends borders and gets beyond this feeling of national identity. — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
I didn't have much of a taste for Korean food growing up: I was over the moon about Mexican food. — Lee Isaac Chung Food Copy Share Image
I modeled my work after contemporary masters of art house cinema but felt my voice was missing. — Lee Isaac Chung Art Copy Share Image
I had to stop taking myself and the craft that seriously. Somehow I saw the bigger context of life. It's just a… — Lee Isaac Chung Context Copy Share Image
My grandmother, if she were still alive, she'd be very proud that I held through and did a film in Korean and… — Lee Isaac Chung Alive Copy Share Image
I think the vast majority of us in this country hunger for more unity and hospitality, and we all share and shoulder… — Lee Isaac Chung Country Copy Share Image
I began my filmmaking career by shooting a feature length documentary in China in 2004, the year I graduated from film school. — Lee Isaac Chung Career Copy Share Image
There are a lot of Korean films that will show marital strife, but I'm not sure I've seen so many that will… — Lee Isaac Chung Interest Copy Share Image
Growing up where I was, there were no Asians, no minorities, and there was always something to remind me of what I'm… — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
There's a constant level of risk in farming that so few movies let you feel. I wanted to show some of that,… — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
I had my daughter in 2013, we moved to L.A. and there's just lots of things that were happening that were feeding… — Lee Isaac Chung Children Copy Share Image
I was just making movies to make movies. I was so full of anxiety about becoming a filmmaker that I kind of… — Lee Isaac Chung Anxiety Copy Share Image
I like the idea of all of us looking at the world with less of an emphasis on national borders and with… — Lee Isaac Chung Humanity Copy Share Image
If you're in the rural South, you don't get Korean TV, unless you can find a Korean grocery guy who has been… — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
Early on... I did notice that a lot of people had the tendency to do their own story starting out. I felt… — Lee Isaac Chung Copy Share Image
