My name is Rée, and I’m a social impact producer amplifying female, Asian, and neurodivergent voices in creative and educational spaces.
With a B.A. in Fine Art (photography), M.F.A. in Filmmaking (creative producting), and 12+ years of experience as a TESOL-certified educator and curriculum developer, I create engaging learning experiences that drive social connection, collaboration, and impactful change.
My recent projects include developing an international podcast on education reform, directing a series of videos for The Walters Art Museum, collaborating on the social design of a marketing campaign for Johns Hopkins Hospital, redesigning the website for an Asian democracy NGO operating in 40 countries, and producing short films which have screened at film festivals in the United States.
My thesis film in grad school—which was selected as the opening film for three separate screenings, including the Baltimore Short Film Festival—was the pilot episode of a web series. It was set in a dystopian America with schools that prize test scores over morals and a media environment that publishes alternative news to preserve an inequitable balance of power.
No, it was not a documentary, but I do consider myself a documentary filmmaker.
Below is one of 10+ short documentaries I made before I went to film school. It’s about my mother and the music she wrote to combat the authoritarian regime of the Park Chung Hee administration in South Korea during the 1970s. Spoiler: her original LPs were destroyed by the government; only 3 remain in existence.
Although I’ve always been interested in highlighting the stories of real people, it wasn’t until all three of my thesis advisors (Sundance/Oscars/Slamdance award-winning documentary filmmakers) taught me how to make people care about our subjects that I learned how this skill can be harnessed in community-building, fundraising, and awareness-raising efforts.
Since then, not only have I directed and produced multiple short form and social-first documentaries, I have also assistant-produced an award-winning documentary film Anatomy of Wings (2020), and have done various work-for-hire jobs in between the development and delivery stages of production for other documentaries including Squeegee (2024) and Traces of Brilliant Spirit (in production).
Below is one short documentary I made post-film school, followed by a story I wrote about a Korean American author who changed my life.
In the past 10 years, I have spoken publicly about the importance of storytelling in the age of automation (now, AI) at conferences and symposiums organized by institutions like Teachers College, Columbia University; Seoul National University; the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design; and the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research.
And, in the past 20 years, I’ve combined my interests in storytelling and communications-based instruction to develop courses and workshops that center learners and their impact on society.
For example, as an assistant professor at Far East University between 2011 and 2013, I co-developed a collaborative project with my colleague in the journalism department. Her students wrote news stories focused on issues impacting their communities, and my filmmaking students worked with them to create 14 news packages that were distributed campus-wide.
As another example, in 2020, I was commissioned by the Chair of the Graduate School of International Studies at Ewha Womans University to develop and facilitate a 3 week-long storytelling workshop for graduate students working to improve their communities in 8 different countries.
It is now an annually recurring workshop.
#narrativechange for the win!
