Under The Rose: Films by Helen Lee

Under The Rose: Films by Helen Lee

Pleasure Dome is proud to present an evening of short works by award-winning Toronto and Seoul-based independent filmmaker Helen Lee.

Celebrating Helen’s return to filmmaking, the program showcases some of the filmmaker’s critical works that illuminate the postcolonial female experience, and an excerpt premiere of a new work-in-progress short entitled, Into Such Assembly. Her poetic narratives escape easy definition “…as if one were ambushed by a cool beauty, the steady-throb of minor key glamour, the raw intelligence that bursts out of the background of details” (Mike Hoolboom, Practical Dreamers: Conversations with Movie Artists).

INTO SUCH ASSEMBLY (2019), 3 min. excerpt of work-in-progress Adaptation of Korean American poet Myung Mi Kim’s iconic, experimental work.

SALLY’S BEAUTY SPOT (1990), 12 min. 16mm
A mole on a young Asian woman’s breast becomes a metaphor for cultural difference in this critique of Asian femininity, racial binaries and the stereotype.

PREY (1995), 26 min. 16mm
Two worlds collide when a convenience store owner’s daughter (Sandra Oh) falls for an Indigenous childhood pal (Adam Beach) on the eve of her grandmother’s visit. Original soundtrack by King Cobb Steelie.

~ 10 min. intermission ~

HERS AT LAST (2008), 18 min. Digital
Two parallel stories of displaced Seoulites — a Mongolian expat facing pregnancy and a painter resettling back into her hometown – who find fleeting if temporary communion through the spirit of a 10-year-old girl.

SUBROSA (2000), 22 min. 35mm
A young adoptee returns to Korea to search for her biological mother, experiencing profound alienation in this cinematic study of affect, abjection and rebirth.

~ Q&A with filmmaker ~

This venue is fully accessible.

This presentation is generously sponsored in part by the Graduate Program in Film, School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design at York University (York U AMPD).

Thank you to our sponsors! Pleasure Dome is generously supported by the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Arts Council.