Julie Ha’s storytelling career spans more than two decades, with a specialized focus on Asian American stories. She was an editor at KoreAm Journal for 10 years. From 2011 to 2014, she was its editor-in chief. This award-winning coverage covered the 20-year anniversary the Los Angeles riots. Ha has written for TThe Hartford Courant, Connecticut, Rafu Shimpo, Los Angeles-based Japanese American paper, and The Los Angeles Times. New American Media and Society of Professional Journalists awarded her with awards for her feature stories. In 2018, the Korea Economic Institute of America recognized her contributions to journalism. “Free Chol Soo Lee” is her first documentary film project. Eugene Yi was her co-director.
“Free Chol Soo Lee” is screening at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, which is running online from January 20-30. More information can be found on the fest’s website.
W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.
JH: The film is about a Korean immigrant wrongly convicted in San Francisco of the murder of a Chinatown gang member in the 1970s. A journalist discovers the case and starts a pan-Asian American campaign to free Chol Soom Lee. And remarkably, they succeed, but even after his release from prison, Chol Soo Lee would find that he wasn’t truly free.
W&H: What drew you to this story?
JH: I’ve actually known about the story since I was 18 years old, when I first met K.W. Lee, the journalist whose stories helped to launch the Free Chol Soo Lee Movement, would be my mentor for many years. But I didn’t really think about making a film about it until 30 years later, after talking with my directing partner Eugene Yi, who planted the idea of making a film together because we had worked together so well in the past as journalists. I told him about the heavy feeling that I felt after attending Chol Seo Lee’s funeral one year earlier.
The mourners, who were mostly the activists who had come to Chol Soo’s aid decades earlier, were expressing a deep regret that they hadn’t done enough for him — even though they had dedicated years of their lives trying to free him from death row. K.W. Lee was also there, and lamented that Chol Soo Lee’s tale had been forgotten.
That overwhelming sense of heaviness at the funeral stayed with us for a long while. Eugene and me knew we had to find out what was behind this heaviness. It was like this story was calling for us to tell.
W&H: What do you want people to think about after they watch the film?
JH: This film, this story, has so much to teach, inspire, and challenge us with as we reflect on this man’s life, which was full of so much suffering and yet also was touched by some of the most compassionate, justice-seeking humans on the planet. Through this story, we see just how hard it is to undo the lasting damage of racism and incarceration on a person’s life, as well as the scars that come from a lack of unconditional love. Despite all the forces that worked against him, Chol Soo Lee still kept trying to pick himself back up and go on, until he just couldn’t any longer.
Though in many ways his life was quite tragic, I think how it all “ends” is really up to those of us who are still living. One of the legacy of the Free Chol Soo Lee campaign is that many of the people who rallied for it went on to pursue careers aimed at the common good, such as youth advocates, public defense lawyers, and community leaders. How will the new generation respond to this history now that they have learned about it? Will we allow this history to change us, move and inspire us to be more compassionate and do our part to create a more just society?
W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?
JH: One major challenge in making this film was that our main character was deceased and we never had a chance to interview him ourselves, yet we wanted to center Chol Soo Lee’s voice and allow him to tell his own story. To achieve this, we realized we had to rely on the words he left behind, as well as his memoirs.
The next challenge was to make these words feel alive and authentically inhabited. And that’s when our producer Su Kim told us about Sebastian Yoon, who does the voiceover in our film. She had seen Sebastian speak at an event for the documentary series “College Behind Bars,” and was surprised to see a Korean American on the panel. Sebastian was a participant in the Bard Prison Initiative which allows incarcerated men or women to attend college classes and get their degrees. Su was moved by his speech and felt that he could be Chol Soo Lee’s voice.
He was extremely open to us reaching out to him when we reached them. Sebastian not only gives the Chol Soo Lee voice in our film an authenticity and genuine emotion, but he also worked with us on the script to help us flesh out Chol Soo’s prison experience.
W&H: How did you get your film funded? Let us know how you got the film produced.
JH. We were very fortunate to have ITVS as our coproduction partner in 2019. We knew that our film could reach a broad audience, including those in prison, thanks to the public TV partnership.
If you look at our complete list of funders, it’s a multitude of sources, both large and small. Over the film’s lifetime, we did a lot in grant writing. We were very fortunate to receive the support of California Humanities as well as the Center for Asian American Media. We were also supported by the Ford Foundation and Korean Film Council later on.
I want to mention that we appreciate the smaller grants, too, such as from the Asian Women Giving Circle and UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center, because they came during crucial times and allowed us to keep pushing ahead. We found this community-based support very important, considering the subject of our film on a grassroots community movement.
W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
JH: I’m a print journalist by training, and feel like I stumbled into filmmaking because, 1) I had a friend, my directing partner Eugene, who wanted us to work on a film project together about an Asian American subject, and 2) I couldn’t get the story of Chol Soo Lee out of my mind.
It was a film I felt strongly about. This story was desperate for a release. While I’m new to filmmaking, I have long identified as a storyteller and believe the stories we tell can change the world and help us feel more connected to each other. We need to be reminded more than ever of our common humanity.
W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?
JH: I’ll focus on the best advice: While participating in the 2019 Camden film retreat, filmmaker Stephen Maing, who was a mentor, said something about how there could be great value in working on your film for several years. I can’t remember the number he suggested, but I do recall thinking that all the years Eugene and I had put in by that point counted for something!
Stephen suggested that taking extra time with your film and the story can help you to develop the skills you need to tell the story that you want to tell. I was a new filmmaker and I gravitated to this advice because there was so much to learn and so many new skills that I needed to improve my ability to tell this story.
W&H: What advice do you have for other women directors?
JH: First, be your story’s strongest, most passionate advocate. Second, surround your self with people who are passionate about the story as you are. Eugene and I have been pretty humbled by the dedication of our team, including producers, editors,and the archival and post teams, who worked so hard to make sure we could make the best film possible.
As directors, Eugene and I were committed to pushing ourselves in service to this incredible story, but witnessing our producers Su Kim, Jean Tsien — also one of our film’s editors — and Sona Jo also be inspired by this story and literally working around the clock, so we could do justice to it, really touched me. This collective effort is all the more beautiful because our film’s story is about collective action. It was a chorus behind the Free Chol Soo Lee movement, not a single activist, said one of them. We could also say the same thing about our movie.
W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.
JH: I don’t really like to talk about films in the context of “favorites,” but one film I loved recently is “First Cow” by Kelly Reichardt. It was recommended by one of our film’s editors, Aldo Velasco. It was the first film by Reichardt that I had ever seen, and I was really blown away that I could feel that much suspense for a film with a plot centered on stealing cow’s milk! I was moved by the beautiful, subtle textures of the friendship between Cookie and King Lu. I believed every minute of it. Reichardt does ask you to be patient as a viewer, but if you’re open and hang in there, she will draw you in and the payoff is amazing.
W&H: How are you adjusting to life during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are you creative? If so, how?
JH: I think it’s been so hard for so many of us. This pandemic has left no one unharmed. Eugene and me lost a dear friend last year to COVID. This Korean American storyteller was also a friend of mine. His name was Jimmy Lee. He actually makes a “cameo” in our film, and it’s like our secret tribute. I have had to adjust to a new norm in the past. I know from personal experience that there is no guarantee for tomorrow. I learned to value today and to live each day as it comes.
W&H: The film industry has a long history of underrepresenting people of color onscreen and behind the scenes and reinforcing — and creating — negative stereotypes. What steps do you believe are necessary to make the industry more inclusive?
JH: There’s an interesting story related to our film that speaks to this problem. Hollywood made the film “True Believer” in 1989, and it was loosely based on the Chol Soo Lee case. They did, however, the usual whitewashing. James Wood and Robert Downey Jr., white defense lawyers, were the stars and heroes of this film. The film did not feature a hard-charging Korean American journalist or a group of Asian American activists fighting the criminal justice system.
Hollywood wouldn’t allow them to occupy such roles. Our film does. Our film allows Asian Americans to be seen and heard in all their human contexts. And that’s why Eugene and I often say that our film has the potential to change how American society at large sees Asian Americans, but also how we see ourselves. Storytellers from underrepresented groups need to be given the opportunity to have their projects funded, greenlit, and distributed. Filmmaker Grace Lee has been advocating very passionately for equity and inclusion in the documentary film space on her podcast, “Viewers Like Us.” We need to understand that equity and inclusion actually benefits everyone.
Because I am a journalist, I believe inclusion in media is more broadly defined. I believe that while we should demand changes within the largely mainstream institutions, we as members of underrepresented communities should also be working simultaneously with them to create alternative spaces and opportunities to tell stories on our terms. And it’s important for those who believe in the latter to support those efforts, including financially. We need to expand inclusive storytelling opportunities across all fronts.
Source: Women And Hollywood
