In 2020, amid pandemic, racial unrest, and economic crisis, five Korean Americans run for U.S. Congress. They include a progressive LGBTQ candidate in L.A., a Democrat of Black and Korean heritage in Washington, two Trump-aligned Republicans in Orange County, and a Democratic incumbent in New Jersey. Though bound by shared immigrant roots, they diverge on today’s divides—from Black Lives Matter to Trump. With only one Korean American ever elected to Congress before 2018, all five seek to reshape history.

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Interview questions and answers:

How and Why did you become a documentary maker?
I am an accidental documentary filmmaker.
I was working as an attorney in New York when I backpacked through Cuba 2015. There, by sheer chance, I was picked up by a taxi driver who happened to be a fourth-generation Korean Cuban. Patricia told me that her grandfather had arrived in Cuba from Korea a century earlier as an indentured laborer, and that her father, Jeronimo Lim, had fought in the Cuban Revolution alongside Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.
What began as a one-year sabbatical from practicing law and a small passion project - something like a 30-minute video to upload on YouTube - became a three-and-a-year full-time pursuit of a feature-length documentary. after losing twenty pounds and exhausting much of my financial resources, the film, JERONIMO, was finally completed. It opened in theaters across Korea in 2019.
CHOSEN became my second feature documentary. In the tumultuous year of 2020 - amid racial tensions, economic uncertainty, and a global pandemic - the United States held a presidential election. In that same election, five Korean Americans ran for the U.S. Congress, more that in any previous election cycle. As someone long interested in the Korean diaspora, I wanted to understand why these Korean Americans sought some of the highest offices in the United States, how they defined their Korean and Asian American identities, why representation mattered to them, and what relationship, if any, they believed they should maintain with Korea after entering public office.
I will avoid spoilers, but several of them were elected, and the film later opened in theaters in Korea in 2022.

What make a good documentary?
There are many different forms of documentaries. Some are meticulously scripted from the beginning, while others evolve organically as production unfolds. My films tend to belong to the latter category.
When I began filming JERONIMO or CHOSEN, I did not fully know what the final story would look like. In many ways, the film revealed itself only after hundreds of hours of footage were gathered and brought into the editing room - which, in my case, happened to be my bedroom in Astoria, Queens.
Personally, I believe a good documentary creates space for contemplation. Rather than rushing toward predetermined conclusion, it invites audiences to wrestle with questions alongside the filmmaker. A good documentary trusts viewers enough to let them arrive at their own understanding. It does not merely deliver answers; it creates room for reflection, ambiguity, and discovery.

Why did you make CHOSEN and what were they key challenges to make the film?
It would be naive to believe that politics has little to do with our individual lives. Particularly after Donald Trump's election in 2016, political rhetoric increasingly shaped media narratives and the collective psyche of Americans.
Ideas such as diversity, equity, and inclusion - concepts that once seemed like natural features of twenty-first-century public life - suddenly became deeply contested. At the same time, anti-Asian hate crimes following the COVID-19 pandemic exposed how fragile the place of Asian Americans could be in moments of national crisis.
As someone deeply interested in the identity formation of the Korean diaspora, I was also drawn to a broader question: what role, if any, might Korean Americans play in advancing peace on the Korean Peninsula? Given the United States' central role in the unresolved Korean War and the future of the peninsula. I wondered whether greater Korean American representation in government might contribute, however modesty, to that conversation.
For these reasons, I could not ignore the story when I learned that five Korean Americans were running for Congress. What fascinated me most was how different they were from one another. Among them were Trump-supporting Republicans, a biracial Korean Black Democrat, a moderate establishment Democrat, and an LGBTQ progressive. Their political, cultural, and personal difference reflected the diversity - and at times the tensions - within the Korean American community itself. The challenges were numerous.
First, filming during the height of the pandemic required extraordinary caution. Every interview, campaign event, and production decision had implications for the health and safety of our crew, the candidates, and their campaign teams.
Second, there was the challenge of fairness. Whether true neutrality is possible in documentary filmmaking is a larger philosophical question. However, my intention from the outset was not to create a partisan film. Each candidate agreed to participate based on the belief that their story would be told fairly and respectfully. It tried to honor that trust while remaining faithful to the broader narrative and themes the film sought to explore.

What's next for you? What project are you currently working on?
I am currently working on a documentary about a Korean American doctor couple who have treated children with development disabilities in North Korea since 2007. When all foreign aid workers and visitors were asked to leave North Korea before the COVID-19 pandemic, the couple was forced to relocate to South Korea. Today, they continue searching for a path back to the children and communities they served for many years.
I was drawn to this story because it offers a rare glimpse into North Korea through the eyes of people who have spent nearly two decades caring for some of its most vulnerable citizens. Their work is not at all political. Rather, it is rooted in the simple but radical act of caring for another human being.
At a time when geopolitical tensions continue to rise and public discourse often reduces people to ideological categories, this story reminds us of something easily forgotten: beyond every border and political system, there are human beings with hopes, complexities, and relationships.
In many ways, this project continues a theme that has been present throughout my work. Whether exploring Korean Cubans, Korean American politicians, or humanitarian workers in North Korea, I have been interested in people who exit between worlds and across boundaries. I call this narrative of "diasporic consciousness", which serves as my guiding principle in storytelling.