fbpx

FREE CHOL SOO LEE

USA202286 minutesEnglishCanadian PremiereDocumentary, Women Filmmakers

San Francisco, 1973. Chol Soo Lee, a young Korean American man, is charged and hastily convicted of murder in Chinatown. Only Lee wasn’t anywhere near the shooting. Marooned in prison, Lee’s case gains notoriety after journalist K.W. Lee’s investigative exposé, which inspires a new generation of Asian American activists to fight for Chol Soo Lee’s release in 1983.

But freedom is elusive in Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s moving documentary, which covers the rise of a movement and the fall of a man too battered by prison to meet the expectations of him. Expertly layered with extensive archival footage of Lee and contemporary interviews with leaders of the freedom movement, Free Chol Soo Lee is at times a justice-system drama, and a character study—and always empathetic. And it resists the typical salaciousness of the “true crime” genre to show the true human impact, between despair and salvation, on a man yearning to be free.

- Aram Siu Wai Collier

Recognitions

OFFICIAL SELECTION
Sundance Film Festival, 2022
Busan International Film Festival, 2022

Director Bio

Julie Ha and Eugene Yi

Julie Ha’s storytelling career spans more than two decades, in both ethnic and mainstream media, with a specialized focus on Asian American stories. Free Chol Soo Lee marks her first documentary-film project.

Eugene Yi is a filmmaker, editor, and journalist. His film-editing work has premiered at the Berlinale, Sundance, Tribeca, and others.

11 Nov, 2022 6:15 pm

The screening for Free Chol Soo Lee will be shown at TIFF Bell Lightbox 3.

TICKETS

Rating

Rated PG
Content Warning: Violence, sexual violence, trauma

Accessibility

This film is presented with open captions.

Sponsor

Q&A: FREE CHOL SOO LEE

Join us for a Q&A immediately after the theatrical presentation with producer Su Kim.

You May Also Like...

Features
LAND OF GOLD

Kiran, a first-generation Punjabi truck driver, is about to become a father, but he is preoccupied by questions and reflections on family, fatherhood, and responsibility.

Features
Closing Night: TOPLINE

Romeo Candido’s latest musical foray Topline takes us into the world of topliners: the people who write the lyrics, melodies, and hooks for the industry’s biggest stars.

Features
ALL THAT BREATHES

Brothers Saud and Nadeem live in a working-class, predominantly Muslim neighbourhood in New Delhi, where they have made it their lives’ work to care for injured black kites falling from the polluted skies of the city.

Open Tickets Cart