Han Ji-won is a Seoul-based director, illustrator and cartoonist. Her debut film, Clearer Than You Think, made her the youngest South Korean to direct a theatrically released animation film. It earned praise from moviegoers as well as fellow directors such as Yeon Sang-ho, director of Train to Busan and Pseudo, who referred to her as a “new kind of director that’s hard to find in Korea.”
The main theme of director Han Ji-won’s work is the dreams of youth and it focuses on the moments and emotions of characters who have the shared experience of living in a pressure-filled Korean society. While attending the Korea National University of Arts, she released her first animated short, Kopi Luwak, which was awarded the Grand Prize at the Seoul Independent Animation Film Festival.
Since then, she has been working as a 2D animation director and independent producer. In addition to her feature film work, she produced a web animation series titled, Recipe to My Daughter based on writer Gong Ji-young’s essay of the same name. Her most recent short film, The Sea of the Day of the Return of Magic, won the grand prize at the 2022 Seoul Independent Animation Film Festival and competed in the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.