Born in Busan in 1985, OH Min-wook majored in mass communication and journalism. His experimental documentaries often focus on the scars left by wars and the echoes of major events in Korea’s recent history. His first movie, the short <1987061020080610> (2008), consisted in a montage of footages of the June 1987 democratic uprising and the 2008 candlelight demonstrations against the lifting of the US beef import ban. His debut feature, <Ash> (2013) questioned h...More

Born in Busan in 1985, OH Min-wook majored in mass communication and journalism. His experimental documentaries often focus on the scars left by wars and the echoes of major events in Korea’s recent history. His first movie, the short <1987061020080610> (2008), consisted in a montage of footages of the June 1987 democratic uprising and the 2008 candlelight demonstrations against the lifting of the US beef import ban. His debut feature, <Ash> (2013) questioned humanity’s relationship with time through an essay on the history of Busan’s urban development and the mountains surrounding the city. OH won the Jury Prize and the Maverick Prize (awarded by the Association of Korean Independent Film & Video) at the Seoul Independent Film Festival for <A Roar of the Prairie> (2015), a documentary on the former residents of a neighborhood that sprawled around the US military base Camp Hialeah in Busan who had to leave their home when the area was redeveloped as a public park after the site was returned to the city. His most recent film, <Letters to Buriram> (2019) takes the form of a letter addressed by the Taiwanese HSIAO Kaitsu to her mother in Buriram, Thailand, as she and OH visit Kinmen, an island in the Taiwan Strait where people live under the constant threat from People’s Republic of China as it is located at a stone’s throw from the mainland. OH is now the president of the Busan Independent Film Association.Less