UM Tae-hwa, born in 1981, was studying advertising design at Hongik University when he started directing short movies, starting with <The Story About SunHee> in 2002. The following year, his short <Cactus> (2003) won Best Picture at the Evergreen International Short Film Festival. Having worked as an assistant director on three of PARK Chan-wook’s works – a segment in the anthology film <Three… Extremes> (2004), <Sympathy for Lady Vengeance> (20...More

UM Tae-hwa, born in 1981, was studying advertising design at Hongik University when he started directing short movies, starting with <The Story About SunHee> in 2002. The following year, his short <Cactus> (2003) won Best Picture at the Evergreen International Short Film Festival. Having worked as an assistant director on three of PARK Chan-wook’s works – a segment in the anthology film <Three… Extremes> (2004), <Sympathy for Lady Vengeance> (2005) and <Night Fishing> (2010) – UM already had a lot of experience in the field when he enrolled at the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA) in 2011. Through its prestigious Advance Program, UM would make the short <Forest> (2012), Grand Prize winner at the Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival, as well as his debut feature <INGtoogi: The Battle of Internet Trolls> (2012), an action-drama film about escalating online feuds that received a lot of praises from the critics. After performing some storyboard work on PARK Chan-kyong’s <MANSHIN: Ten Thousand Spirits> (2013) and the horror thriller <The Wicked> (2013), he wrote and directed the fantasy film <VANISHING TIME: A BOY WHO RETURNED> (2016), earning a special mention of the international jury at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival on top of the Grand Bell Film Award for Best New Director. Less