Bae Doona is an internationally acclaimed South Korean actress whose career spans film, television, and global streaming platforms. She gained early recognition in Bong Joon-ho’s Barking Dogs Never Bite and The Host, as well as Park Chan-wook’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, before earning international acclaim for her leading role in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Air Doll. She later achieved global recognition through the Wachowski sisters’ Cloud Atlas and Netflix’s Sense8. Bae is celebrated for her versatility and emotionally nuanced performances across genres and cultures.

Youngmin Choe is an Associate Professor of Korean Cinema and Visual Culture and Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at USC. Her publications include Hanyo (The Housemaid) (BFI, 2025), Tourist Distractions: Traveling and Feeling in Transnational Hallyu Cinema, and The Korean Popular Culture Reader (co-editor). Her research has appeared in leading film and media journals, including Cinema Journal and the Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema.

Jeong Jae-eun is a South Korean filmmaker known for her thoughtful explorations of youth, community, and social change. Her acclaimed debut feature, Take Care of My Cat (2001), became a landmark portrayal of young women’s lives and remains influential in Korean cinema. Her later work, including Talking Architect (2011), City: Hall (2013), and Ecology in Concrete (2017), examines architecture, public space, democracy, and environmental sustainability through documentary and experimental forms.

Joseph Jonghyun Jeon is Director of the Center for Critical Korean Studies and Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine, with appointments in Asian American Studies, Film and Media Studies, and Culture and Theory. He is the author of Racial Things, Racial Forms: Objecthood in Avant-Garde Asian American Poetry (Iowa, 2012); Vicious Circuits: Korea’s IMF Cinema and the End of the American Century (Stanford, 2019); and Bong Joon Ho: Global Entanglements (Illinois, 2024).

Ungsan Kim is Assistant Professor of Asian cinema in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington. He teaches and researches Korean cinema, inter-Asian cinema, queer cinema, and Asian genre films. He is currently completing his monograph as a Cornell Society for the Humanities fellow.

Born in Tokyo in 1962, Hirokazu Kore-eda graduated from Waseda University and joined TV Man Union, where he primarily directed documentary television programs. He made his feature film directorial debut with Maborosi in 1995. His film Shoplifters (2018) won the Palme d’Or at the 71st Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards. His 2023 film Monster received both the Best Screenplay Award and the Queer Palm at the 76th Cannes Film Festival. In 2026, Sheep in the Box was released in Japan, with its North American release to follow. His live-action adaptation of Look Back is also forthcoming.

Nam Lee is Associate Professor of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University. A former film critic and journalist in South Korea, her research focuses on contemporary Korean cinema, global film authorship, women’s filmmaking, and gender representation. She is the author of Rediscovering Korean Cinema (University of Michigan Press, 2019), The Films of Bong Joon Ho (Rutgers University Press, 2020), and East Asian Remake (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), and has contributed to several edited volumes on Korean and East Asian cinema. Her current work examines cinematic portrayals of motherhood and aging femininity.

Akira Lippit is a film scholar, writer, and editor whose books include Ex-Cinema, Atomic Light (Shadow Optics), Electric Animal, and Cinema without Reflection. His current research focuses on contemporary Japanese cinema and the work of David Lynch. A recipient of awards from the Academy of Korean Studies, Japan Foundation, and Fulbright-Hays, Lippit is active as a programmer, interviewer, and editor, and serves on the editorial boards of Discourse and Film Quarterly.