Ryu Seong-hie: “Instead of breaking the wall, create your own door”
by Luciana Dolabella
2024 Busan Film Festival announced a new award: the Camellia Award, to be given to especially inspiring and pioneering women in the film business. On its premiere the award goes to the wonderful Korean art director and production designer Ryu Seong-hie. Her work inspires many production designers around the globe, changed the landscape for women in the film industry in Korea, paved change for men and women on production design and brought hundreds of thousands of people in the world closer to Korea through the Korean Cinema. She was responsible for the production design of must-know Korean films such as “The Host”, “The Handmaiden”, “Memories of a murder”, “Decision to Leave” and “Oldboy”. These films broke box office records in Korea and received critics recognition worldwide. It was a hard way to go, she remembers: “Back to Korea, for a year and a half all producers rejected me”. About the Camelia Award she says, “It is an immense honor for me, especially thinking of great women working hard and doing an excellent work as film directors, screenwriters, producers and other positions”.
What is it that a Production Designer and Art Director does? The Art Director works close to the director to create everything that you will on a film. It takes a lot of research, a lot of creativity, very hard work, a large hard-working team and it is a very big financial responsibility. All objects in every room or in the hands of actors, every furniture, a monster running on a street or every car parking on it, every make-up detail, the costume on the main actors and on thousands in the crowds as well as the CGI creations. All this is the responsibility of the Art Direction team. “We create together, I try not to forget that”.
Pictures: © Busan International Film Festival
A pioneer for women and men
“The establishment of this award signifies not only support for women but also a new opportunity for the entire film industry to take a fresh leap forward and embrace new perspectives”.
Ryu, born in 1968, studied at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. After her first film she decided to move back to Korea. “Even my best friends in the US told me not come back to Korea because the film industry here was not stablished yet” she remembers. “When I arrived, I did not know anyone in the film industry, so I made my portfolio and went to every production company” she recalls. “At the time and the response that I got from all companies was that if they had a film of a romance or melodrama maybe they would contact me” she remembers. “There was a strong belief by then that the creative genre film was for men, not for women. There were worries about the big budgets - they thought it could be problematic if a women would be responsible for them”, she continues “There was prejudice. A very strong prejudice”. She did now want to do only films of romances or melodramas: “I wanted to cover all kinds of films. That was a promise I made to myself” she says. She did not want to be put on one single corner that was maybe considered acceptable for women. “So I stood strong”. After a year and a half being rejected by film companies, she found an opportunity with new directors by that time to work on genre films: Bong Joon-ho, Park Chan-wook and Song Il-gon. “So, for 10 years I worked very hard in genre films to break this strong prejudice”.
It was worth it. As for every pioneer Ryu with the excellence in her work opened the way to bring Korean films to be admired by the world and change the mindset in the industry, that excellence and hard work does not depend on gender. “Things changed a lot today. The market is much fairer now” she says. “Women have been doing really well on production design” she says “Today sometimes there is even a reverse prejudice against men” the translator shows to be surprised, and Ryu continues “Of course they can. Men and women can be excellent production designers” she affirms. “If someone beyond gender thrive for excellency on the work, prejudices will rather disappear”.
“I tried to break through prejudice by working on genre films. Rather than standing there and fight against the prejudice, I made my work as my identity and tried to make this challenge my door. So, I would say: rather than trying very hard to break the wall, try to create a door”
Inspiration: what is beauty? What is ugly?
“I try not to have a boundary.
I need to create fantasy on the hearts of the audience.”
Designers and artists would find admirable to listen to Ryu Seong-hie and her openness. The way she works in each film with so much research, precision and creativity. She mentions that she got interested in workings in film when she saw “Elefant Man” (1980) from David Lynch, as a big child. The set was the representative of ugliness, but it was where the soul of the character was shining. In another hand the people pointing their fingers at the elephant men looked beautiful but were awful. “I asked myself, what is beauty? What is the definition of ugliness?” she says. She mentions that these are questions that follow her until today. The same way she works not to have prejudices with her teams, such as gender or backgrounds, she works to rethink concepts of beauty and ugliness far from pre-concepted measures. Film is teamwork.
“We work together to create these worlds. I try not to forget that.” she says. “I ask the director of a film and the teams these questions: “what is beauty? What is ugliness?” she affirms. She speaks about the emotions that these sets, these costumes, make ups and especial effects will bring to the people.
One can see how takes every project seriously, with full dedication, concentration, determination, creativity and hard work. When asked, she mentions she does not want to be a film director herself, even though she thought about this option for many years.
“I decided to communicate with the audience through my work as an Art Director”. She hopes to work more on genres such as sci-fi and phantasy. Humble she finishes the interview saying she still thrives for excellence in her next projects “I consider myself an archeologist with phantasy in mind”. Taking the work and responsibility by every film very seriously.
Ryu Seong-hie had a Special Talk with the audience during Busan Film Festival 2024 in the context of the Camelia award.
Pictures: © Busan International Film Festival