In 2022, Hankyul worked with canadian filmmaker Shelly J. Hong on ‘Mother Tongue’ as both art director and production designer. Inspired by the director’s personal experiences as a child of a Korean-immigrant family, Hankyul connected deeply with the script and was able to translate words into a visual language that brought the story’s pages to life in an authentic way. Despite the short’s independent budget and a pandemic timeline, Hankyul worked closely with the cast and crew (lots of zoom meetings) from pre to post to ensure that her and the director’s collective vision translated throroughly for the big screen. Ultimately premiered at Toronto’s Blood in the Snow Film Festival, the film is still circulating in festivals and is currently unavailable for public viewing.
