Helen Lee

Helen Lee is a Korean-Canadian filmmaker whose striking blend of narrative and experimental cinema probes issues of race, gender, sexuality, memory, and diasporic identity. Emigrating to Canada at the age of 4, she grew up in Scarborough, Ontario, before pursuing film studies at the University of Toronto and New York University, where she embraced gender and postcolonial theory. She gained recognition early in her career with the short Sally’s Beauty Spot (1990), a metaphorical exploration of cultural and racial identity, followed by My Niagara (1992) and Prey (1995). Over a career spanning experimental works and feature-length projects, Lee has consistently interrogated the complexities of embodiment, interracial relationships, and the representation of East Asians in Western cinema. Her more recent films include Into Such Assembly (2019), Paris to Pyongyang (2024), and Tenderness (2024), continuing her thoughtful engagement with cultural memory and identity.