Last Letters Recognized by Short of the Week
After being selected as a featured film on SHORT OF THE WEEK, Last Letters was later named one of theTop 3 films of December. This recognition came as a quiet but meaningful moment for the project. The platform has long been known for its careful curation of short films from around the world.
Jason Sondhi’s monthly review offered thoughtful context around the film. It helped place LAST LETTERS within a broader conversation about form, restraint, and intention in short filmmaking.
Music as a Starting Point
Music has always played an important role in how I approach film. Before filmmaking, I spent years collecting records, and that connection has stayed with me. Sound often shapes the emotional rhythm of my work long before images do.
URBAN ISLAND was an early experiment in combining documentary footage with music by Sigur Rós. With Last Letters, the collaboration with Levi Patel followed a similar instinct but moved in a quieter direction. His track SINCE LAST LETTERS became the emotional backbone of the film. It allowed the project to sit somewhere between documentary and music film, without fully becoming either.
The Day That Changed Everything
On April 16, 2014, a ferry traveling from Incheon to Jeju Island capsized. Out of 476 passengers and crew members, 304 lost their lives. The event left a deep mark on Korean society, one that remains unresolved years later.
Last Letters follows eight families who lost loved ones that day. The film blends documentary elements with carefully structured scenes, not to reconstruct events, but to acknowledge what remains in their absence.
Living With Unanswered Questions
Nearly three years after the tragedy, many questions remained unanswered. Several families became activists, frustrated by the lack of clarity and accountability. Investigative documentaries have addressed parts of this story. I felt there was space for a different approach.
Instead of focusing on facts and timelines, Last Letters looks at the spaces the families inhabit now. Their homes carry traces of memory, loss, and routine. These environments became central to how the film unfolds.
A Film Shaped by Space
Architecture and space have long influenced how I see and frame stories. In Last Letters, the living spaces of the families function as quiet witnesses. They hold grief without explanation.
Rather than pushing toward anger or resolution, the film aims to offer a moment of stillness. It does not speak for the families. It simply stays with them. In doing so, I hoped the film could carry their experience beyond Korea, without simplifying it.
Being included among the Top 3 films on Short of the Week felt less like an endpoint and more like a continuation. It suggested that this quieter way of telling the story could still find an audience willing to listen.