Born in Seoul in 1970, Equan Choe first majored in linguistics before entering the film department of the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA). A classmate of Bong Joonho and Jang Joonhwan (of <Save the Green Planet!> fame), he was in charge of lighting for the former’s short <Memories in My Frame> (1994) and did camera work for the latter’s short <2001 Imagine> (1994). After graduating in 1994, his initial plan was to move to television but he failed the ...More

Born in Seoul in 1970, Equan Choe first majored in linguistics before entering the film department of the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA). A classmate of Bong Joonho and Jang Joonhwan (of <Save the Green Planet!> fame), he was in charge of lighting for the former’s short <Memories in My Frame> (1994) and did camera work for the latter’s short <2001 Imagine> (1994). After graduating in 1994, his initial plan was to move to television but he failed the entrance exam and instead worked at Kodak Korea for a while. A stroke of luck would bring him back into film, as he suddenly found himself working on the set for Yim Soonrye’s <Three Friends> (1996). After honing his skills through a few shorts, he served as production coordinator on <Motel Cactus> (1997) and was later hired as first assistant director for <Whispering Corridors> (1998). He went on with an MFA in filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2004, he made his directing debut with <The Voice>, the fourth instalment in the <Whispering Corridors> series. He then took on a new challenge with his sophomore feature <Life is Cool> (2008), with employed rotoscope animation. With many projects failing to find a producer or investment, Equan found work as a regular lecturer at KAFA during the 2000s, notably participating as consultant to many of the feature projects realized as part of the school’s Feature Course such as Yoon Sunghyun’s celebrated debut <Bleak Night> (2010). Named Dean of KAFA in late 2011, Equan contributed to the production of further notable feature debuts like <INGtoogi: The Battle of Internet Trolls> (2012), <Socialphobia> (2014) and <Alice In Earnestland> (2014). In 2015, he joined Soongsil University as one of the resident professors of the newly opened Film Art Department. More recently, he returned to the director’s seat with the indie drama <roooom> (2018), presented at the Jeonju International Film Festival, and the inde drama <Kill me now> (2020), Less