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WANG Min-cheol  
WANG Min-cheol
Director, Producer, 1st Assistant Director, Director of Photography, , Editor

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Gender : Male

Nationality : South Korea

Despite a degree in metal engineering, WANG Min-cheol, born in 1975, has always loved movies. By his own admission, he wasn’t studying that much and instead did a lot for the film club of his college. His first job after graduation was as a video designer of Flash animations. When his girlfriend and now wife expressed her desire to study in Germany, he followed her and, after learning German for a year and as the result of many tries, entered the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne. As he would still have trouble communicating nuanced and precise instructions to German-speaking actors, WANG eventually turned to documentaries. He came back to Korea in 2012, more than a decade later, only to notice that much had changed in the meantime, starting with the neighborhood he used to live in that had been totally razed and replaced by high apartment complexes. This prompted his interest in things that don’t last, and as a result wound up working as first assistant director on the documentary film <The Hospice>, which followed people at the end of life. While preparing a performance mixing live music and old video footage of the town of Cheongju for the Cheongju Museum of Art, it was suggested to him that he also include present-day images, and so came to film Cheongju Municipal Zoo. These footage were later used and complemented to constitute WANG’s first directorial feature documentary, <Garden, Zoological> (2018), following zoo keepers and exploring the roles zoos have nowadays as the natural habitat of animals is disappearing. The film won the Grand Prize at the Seoul Eco Film Festival and the Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award of the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival for <Garden, Zoological> (2018).
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Filmography

Filmography  
Where We Stay for a While (2025)
Director, Staff
Filmography  
Sanctuary (2024)
Director, Staff
Filmography  
At the Peak of Our Own Story (2023)
Staff
Filmography  
Land and Housing (2022)
Staff
Filmography  
Time to Read Poems (2021)
Staff
Filmography  
Garden, Zoological (2019)
Director, Staff
Filmography  
Now Playing (2015)
Staff
Filmography  
The Hospice (2014)
Staff

Awards and Invitation

  1. · <Sanctuary> Wildflower Film Awards Korea (2025)
  2. · <Where We Stay for a While> Seoul Independent Film Festival : SIFF (2025) - FESTIVAL CHOICE
  3. · <Where We Stay for a While> Busan International Film Festival : BIFF (2025)
  4. · <Sanctuary> Seoul International Eco Film Festival : SIEFF (2023) - Korean Competition - Excellence Prize
  5. · <Sanctuary> Seoul International Eco Film Festival : SIEFF (2023) - Korean Competition - Special Audience Jury Award
  6. · <Sanctuary> Jeju Women's Film Festival (2023)
  7. · <Sanctuary> Seoul International Eco Film Festival : SIEFF (2023)
  8. · <Sanctuary> Seoul Independent Film Festival : SIFF (2022) - Festival Choice
  9. · <Sanctuary> Busan International Film Festival : BIFF (2022) - Wide Angle - Documentary Competition
  10. · <Garden, Zoological> Florence Korea Film Fest (2020) - K-DOCUMENTARY
  11. · <Garden, Zoological> Animal Film Festival in Suncheonman : ANFFIS (2019) - Close Up
  12. · <Garden, Zoological> Muju Film Festival : MJFF (2019) - Contemporary Panorama
  13. · <Garden, Zoological> Seoul Independent Documentary Film Festival : SIDOF (2019) - SIDOF Choice
  14. · <Garden, Zoological> Seoul International Eco Film Festival : SIEFF (2019) - Korean Competition - Grand Prize
  15. · <Garden, Zoological> Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (2019) - Animal Magnetism
  16. · <Garden, Zoological> Seoul International Eco Film Festival : SIEFF (2019) - ECO PLANET
  17. · <Garden, Zoological> Seoul Independent Film Festival : SIFF (2018) - Special Invitation - Features
  18. · <Garden, Zoological> DMZ International Documentary Film Festival (2018) - Korean Docs Showcase - Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award
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