Kyung-Ja Lee

Korean born, Kyung-Ja Lee immigrated to the United States in 1971. She received her Master's degree in directing at AFI (1990), making her multiple award-winning short film Halmani, the first film to explore the life a biracial Eurasian child in America. The film's success led to many awards and fellowships, including Rockefeller Foundation Asian Artist Fellowship, Sundance Screenwriters Lab (1995), and Producers Guild of America Diversity Project Fellowship (2006). Her first feature project, Koreatown Blues, set against the 1992 L.A. Riot, had development deals with PBS American Playhouse (1993) and HBO Pictures (1995-1996). In 2021 she was a fellow in ARRAY's inaugural seminar with Haile Gerima, and was awarded a California Arts Council individual artist fellowship.