Hee Jin Kim
Video Director / Producer
BA Film & Animation
University of the Arts London
MA Documentary Film
Project 01
If I were an Apple, 2025
Director
If I were an apple is a personal documentary that reflects on identity, renewal, and transformation through embodied memory and ritual. Rooted in personal experience, the film draws inspiration from a Korean spiritual practice of writing wishes or misfortunes on paper and burning them as an act of release and cleansing.
Reinterpreted through a contemporary, autobiographical lens, the work uses hanji (traditional Korean paper) and the gestures of Jijeon Dance (paper dance) to translate inner emotional states into physical movement. As the paper is written on, handled, and ultimately consumed by fire, the director’s body moves between remembrance and liberation, documenting a personal process of letting go.
Reinterpreted through a contemporary, autobiographical lens, the work uses hanji (traditional Korean paper) and the gestures of Jijeon Dance (paper dance) to translate inner emotional states into physical movement. As the paper is written on, handled, and ultimately consumed by fire, the director’s body moves between remembrance and liberation, documenting a personal process of letting go.