[Special Panel Talk] Seoul × New York: Indie Cinema Today
Saturday, October 17, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Korean Cultural Center New York
(122 E 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016)
* The program will include a 40-minute panel discussion followed by a 10-minute audience Q&A, with professional consecutive interpretation provided in Korean and English.
Join us for a special conversation exploring the current landscape of independent cinema in Korea and the U.S.
The conversation will cover:
A comparison of independent film production environments and funding systems in Korea and the U.S. — from public funding to private investment and crowdfunding
The current state of independent film distribution and strategies for reaching audiences
Sustainability and long-term survival strategies for independent filmmakers and creators
Come hear perspectives from Seoul and New York on what it means to make and sustain independent cinema today.
◆ Panelists
Tony Bui: Sundance award-winning Director
Tony Bui is a Sundance award-winning writer, director, producer, and educator. He served as Artist-in-Residence at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute and teaches in Columbia’s School of the Arts graduate film program.
His feature debut, Three Seasons, won the Grand Jury Prize, Audience Award, and Best Cinematography Award at the Sundance Film Festival. The film received two Independent Spirit Award nominations and was selected as Viet Nam’s official submission to the Academy Awards, where it was shortlisted. In 2024, Three Seasons returned to Sundance as one of ten films selected from the festival’s four-decade history for its 40th-anniversary celebration.
Bui is a recipient of the Humanitas Prize and an alumnus of the Sundance Institute’s Screenwriting and Directing Labs. He has written and developed projects for HBO, Warner Bros., and NBC. At Columbia, he has created programs bringing together filmmakers, artists, journalists, and cultural thinkers to explore storytelling, cultural memory, and the role of the arts in society.
He previously served on the Board of Directors of Film Independent and currently serves on the Advisory Council of the New York Asian Film Festival.
KAM Jeongwon: Director of <Stars and Sand>
KAM Jeongwon is a filmmaker whose work explores the point where personal emotions meet time, place, and social context. KAM directed the feature film The Train Passed By (2021) and later founded the cooperative Continuity, through which they have continued to produce and independently distribute films. KAM’s latest feature, Stars and Sand (2025), is a fiction film set around the Geumho River and Palhyeon Wetland, capturing the passage of time shared by the river and the people who live alongside it.
Sunah Kim: Consulting Producer of <Karma>
Sunah Kim is a Korean-American filmmaker based in South Korea. She began her career in New York City, producing independent narrative films and a talk show series while working as a fixer for Korean television documentaries. Since returning to Korea in 2013, she has focused on documentary filmmaking, producing award-winning features such as Singing with Angry Bird, The Birth of Resonance as well as the Netflix original docu series My Love: Six Stories of True Love.
Youngyoup Chang: CEO of Cine21 & Managing Director of MSFF
Youngyoup Chang is the CEO and Publisher of Cine21, Korea’s leading film and entertainment media company. A former film journalist and Editor-in-Chief, she has spent 18 years working at the intersection of film journalism, media, and the Korean film industry. Through her work as a jury member at the Busan International Film Festival and as Managing Director of the Mise-en-scène Short Film Festival, she has been committed to discovering and supporting emerging filmmakers and bringing new voices to wider audiences.
◆ Moderator
Da Ye Kim
Da Ye Kim is a doctoral candidate in Cinema Studies at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. Her research interests include virtual reality, new media theories, film festival studies, Korean cinema, and transnational media studies. Working across national and disciplinary borders, she has been exploring in-betweenness in her research and writing.