“Free Chol Soo Lee” Producer Says Commercial Pressures Created Crisis For Documentary Making

A quick look at the filmography of documentary producer Su Kim presents an immediate contrast to the era of the hit documentary. His films explore underrepresented experiences from the inside and present the ultimate antidote to the mishmash of celebrity portrayals and corruption that dominate the non-fiction market.

“I want to capture stories from the fringes of power and bring them into the mainstream,” she said in an interview with IndieWire this week, “to shine a light on the people who often fall through the cracks. fillet". It may seem like a lofty ambition, but it is backed by hard work.

In 2018, Kim was nominated for an Oscar in director Ramell Ross' "Hale County This Morning, This Evening," a lyrical immersion into the life of a black community in Alabama; 2019's "Midnight Traveler" follows an Afghan director and his family on the run from the Taliban through footage shot as they flee; "Bitterbrush," which opened earlier this summer, depicts the lives of two Montana cowgirls. Now comes “Free Chol Soo Lee,” which revisits the little-known story of a Korean-American man who was wrongfully incarcerated for 10 years before his acquittal in 1983, resulting in a difficult life.

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Despite the geographic and cultural diversity of these subjects, Kim's fixation is clear. “One of the things that has always interested me is stories of migration,” said Kim, whose family immigrated to New York from South Korea when she was young. "Being an immigrant myself, I've always been drawn to the life of strangers, and I think that's a common thread in my work."

Kim's producing career over the past decade has coincided with an explosion in the documentary film market driven by the streaming market. Yet even as landmark J. Lo documentaries "Tiger King" and "The Tinder Swindler" have spurred more interest in the form, Kim said the trend has created a greater challenge for the work than it seeks to produce. "People say it's the golden age of documentaries, but I wonder if it's a crisis," she said. "There's a shrinking space for the kind of content I'm trying to put out into the world."