Elly Cho has exhibited around the world and holds numerous awards. Her art explores the intersection between nature, the environment and human behaviour, across various mediums including mixed media, video and performance art. She approachs the subject matter of cultural landscapes in narrative form, and these narratives often relate to her own life experiences and memories. In her video work, Elly has used familiar landscapes that stimulate viewers to engage with an imaginative response.
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Q. Hello Elly, it's a pleasure to have you with us for this interview. Congratulations on your ‘Best Experimental’ and ‘Best Director’ awards at last September's edition of the “Rome International Movie Awards” (click HERE).
Your new movie is "Sum": in a few words, what is it about?
A. Thank you for giving me so many fine great awards I am really honored. This new movie is a second version of my film originally entitled "Island", which is about 14 minutes in length and has two channel videos. "Sum" is based on the same story, but supplemented by adding some feedback from curators. I also made this version longer with a single channel video. I liked the two-channel version which I made before, but I thought it might be interesting to see if single channel viewing of the images would be clearer on a mobile device.
In this version, I wanted to create a dance piece that is very unreal in the sense that I was experiencing a repeated life cycle on three islands: London, Manhattan, and Jeju Island. I used dance as the means of communication to bring forth more clearly the repressed and unconscious inner conflicts caused by life events. I think the pandemic forced me to plan the film this way and turn it into an actual work of art which turned out to be a dance film using body movement like a drawing. During the pandemic, I felt the strong urge to create a piece that relates to the daily life cycle that keeps repeating. Yet at the same time, Island in the work represents a cross-concept of reality and fantasy/paradise.
Set among the islands in three different countries, Island is the story of my creative life journey to rediscover who I really am. This deep and affecting journey of self-discovery touches on issues of loneliness, isolation, and the ongoing strong perseverance of the human spirit.
Island is both a place in life and a life journey, during which I have experienced paradoxical feelings related to relief and the discomfort from being trapped between fantasy and reality in actual life. The dancer in this video is constantly looking for something intangible, it is as though she fears she will never find that tangible hope so strongly empowered by nature. Tangible hope is her seeking clear answers to the nature of passion, pain and desire in life, but that experience can only be actually lived to find out what is waiting at the end.
Q. What can you tell us about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? Was it difficult to find the right collaborators and, above all, a cast who could translate your cinematographic vision into acting and images?
A. I had a hard time finding the right professionals who had experience dancing underwater. I am thus extremely grateful for those who gave me amazing resources to work with during the filming. Without their help, I could not have finished this piece. Looking back now, every aspect of this project was difficult from the very beginning, but I moved forward clearly and worked diligently and with determination to translate my drawing into a viewable and successful film.
In this film, I used performance because of the nature of the dance and my desire to express “life on an island” as a theme for the choreography being offered. Every time you perform a dance piece, it will differ to some degree. This aspect of the dance is very similar to living life, as you may perform the same actions every day, but each day is very different depending on the many things that happen during each day that reflect and explain life
Thus, filming the same movement again and again was an act of experiencing different movements for my entire team as well as for myself. The dance was filmed underwater, so the condition of the performer (dancer) relied on the dance movements a great deal. It thus became a remarkable, interesting, and exciting experience to be able to work on this project.
A. As a visual artist I explore the intersection between nature, the environment, and human behavior, across various mediums, including mixed media, video and performance art. I would say that I started using filming as a medium to depict the relationship between nature, environment, and human behavior. I have been working as a video artist during my artistic career. I now can think about that video work from a film maker’s perspective and want to continue making film/video. Although I focused more on making video art up to now, I recognize video and film as two different genres.
I was trained as a painter for my BA at the SLADE school of Fine art in London and I did my MFA in painting and electronic art, which had film/video included in that department at Slade. I then learned even more when I created videos after I graduated and started working professionally.
Q. What can you tell us about your film work prior to “Sum”?
A. I am a visual artist, and now my art further explores the intersection between nature, the environment, and human behaviour across different mediums that include mixed media, video, and performance art. I then I started using film as one of across different several mediums, as I wanted to depict the relationship between nature, the environment, and human behaviour. I have thus undertaken different, but related, projects because I have been commissioned to communicate specific themes. However, I found the connection to nature always was related to the single theme I was given. For performance works, I have focused on current affairs, such as the AI interaction with humans in a philosophical manner. How do we live with AI in an environment we all must face? My discussion on that topic has remained within the framework of nature, the environment, and human behaviour.
Q. Any future projects you’d like to share?
A. I am currently researching climate change and its relationship to the extinction crisis to make a documentary film about these issues. I have also been experimenting with body movement and dance in my video work as part of my ongoing artistic career. I have produced a number of works using dance, music, and dialogue that relate to the existence of beings, ecology, and humanity. My feature film is entitled Occupancy of the Self, for now, but that may change, as I examine the interrelationship between these ideas. I am focusing on the extinction crisis and how body movement connects to surrounding nature. This film may fall in between the genres of the documentary and experimental filmmaking. I am in the research stages of that effort now.
Q. How would you describe yourself as a director?
A. I list and prioritize my tasks related to the current film I am doing and then evaluate the time required to finish those tasks successfully. Next, I set a timeframe and get to work. This effort includes interviewing people who might be helping with my project, doing the casting, and preparing a budget. I would say I plan everything and concerned with anything when it comes to work. I am very passionate about my work and try my best to embrace the most effective methods for my crew to use successfully in at particular film.
A. I always gain inspiration from a painting and then expand those ideas in film. Painters like Marc Chagall, Francis Bacon, and Mark Rothko, video artists like Nam June Paik and philosophers like Immanuel Kant and Gille Deleuze all inspire me.
Film directors, such as Peter Greenway and his Provocative anestetica in the film, "The Pillow Book". It’s one of the most powerful films done by Peter Greenway about desire, pleasure, and love. I also like Baz Luhrmann, Jean-Luc Godard and Tim Burton.
Q. Your favourite movies? And of course, films you really deplore?
A.
I was really inspired by the film, "The Pillow Book", when I was doing my MFA in London. It’s one of the most powerful films ever done by Peter Greenway about desire, pleasure, and love. Set in various cultural countries in Asia, it captures the essence of the fundamental issues about human desire and love and in a mysterious way. I really like Peter Greenway’s confusing, but intellectual, technique of depicting subject matter in his work. It makes me think deeply about a subject because he is able to confuse me and yet intrigue me by using a subject theoretically.
I really liked the visual concept of the dinner table scene in "The Cook, the thief, his wife & her lover" by Peter Greenaway. I liked the colour and illusory quality of that scene that constructed the theatrical and intellectual with a frame like painting quality that I truly resonated with while viewing it. It seemed like a moving painting or a gallery, and I especially loved that unique presentation.
A. People can follow me on many social networks: my Official Website (HERE), "Facebook" (HERE), "Twitter" (HERE), "Instagram" (HERE), "Linktr.ee" (HERE) and "Linkedin" (HERE).
Q. Thank you for this very inspiring interview, Elly. Here at the “Rome International Movie Awards” we look forward to seeing and appreciating your new film productions!
A. Thank you for the great interview questions. They have really helped me to dive deeper into my thoughts about my ideas and my future projects.
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