Born in 1980, LEE Jong-pil first majored in photography but eventually dropped out as he was more interested in filmmaking and later was accepted into the film school of the Korean National University of Arts. There, he first made the short <Light My Fire> (2007), which was selected for the Generation slate of the Berlinale. After graduation, he made the short <A Trip to the Moon> (2009) before embarking on his feature-length debut, the documentary <Ensemble>...More

Born in 1980, LEE Jong-pil first majored in photography but eventually dropped out as he was more interested in filmmaking and later was accepted into the film school of the Korean National University of Arts. There, he first made the short <Light My Fire> (2007), which was selected for the Generation slate of the Berlinale. After graduation, he made the short <A Trip to the Moon> (2009) before embarking on his feature-length debut, the documentary <Ensemble> (2012), which premiered at the Jecheon International Music and Film Festival in 2012. A producer who noticed him for <Light My Fire> offered him a chance to make his first fiction film and so <Born to Sing>, a film based on Korea’s long-running TV competition show National Singing Contest, released the following year. LEE then took a big leap with his next film, helming the period pansori drama <THE SOUND OF A FLOWER> for CJ Entertainment in 2015. Featuring BAE Suzy and RYU Seung-ryong, LEE’s film tells the story of a pansori singer who attracts the attention of the most powerful people in the Joseon Kingdom. He then achieved his biggest success to date with <Samjin Company English Class> (2020), which managed to sell more than 1.5 million tickets despite the theaters being all but deserted during the Covid-19 pandemic. Not only that, but the movie also was ranked among the best Korean movies that year and eventually received the Baeksang Art Award for Best Picture. Lee was particularly busy in 2022 with two big projects, an action thriller tentatively named <Escape> about the escape attempt by a North Korean soldier that is set for release later in 2023, and the Waave original 8-part slice-of-life series <One Day Off>, released in 2023, about the weekend escapades of a depressed schoolteacher. Less