Minji Kang (and you're welcome to call her by her nickname Melody) is a cinematic storyteller from South Korea, known for her bold vision and emotionally resonant narratives. She seeks to understand the meaning of existence and the intricate emotional landscapes of family. Through cinema, she dares to approach the elusive essence of life’s mystery. 

 

She attended Tabor Academy, earned her B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and holds an M.F.A. from Columbia University in New York City, where she honed her voice in film directing and writing as a recipient of Columbia's TOMS Scholarship. Her thesis film, The Loyalist, made waves on the international festival circuit, garnering multiple accolades including nominations for The Adrienne Shelly Award for Best Female Director and for Best Director and Best Film at the NBCUniversal Short Fest. The script to The Loyalist is featured in Short Film Screenwriting: A Craft Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury Publishing) by Austin Bunn at Cornell University. 

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Since 2005, she has created numerous films, narrative and experimental, of various lengths and formats: 16mm, 35mm, HD, Virtual Reality (VR). Her feature film projects have been selected for and presented at Fantastic 7 at the Marché du Film – Festival de Cannes, Cine Qua Non Lab, Busan AFiS, the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival's NAFF (Network of Asian Fantastic Films), Let’s CEE (Central and Eastern Europe )Talent Academy, and Berlinale Talents Tokyo. She is a member of the New Asian Producers' Network (NAPNet).

 

In her thirties, she wrote the psychological family thriller ILLICIT and poured herself into bringing the film to life, a journey that ultimately carried her back to South Korea. Although the project was selected for the prestigious Cannes' Fantastic 7, she endured the painful unraveling of the film in its final financing stages. Yet her seven years in South Korea ignited a new phase in her artistic voice, rooted in inner healing, self-acceptance, and personal transformation—currents that continue to shape her work and her pursuit of the stories she believes in. ​​​

 

Minji is writing two semi-biographical films around the same protagonist. Howl Like Huskies: Dreamer follows her at forty as a filmmaker, while Howl Like Huskies revisiting her childhood at ten, is supported by Cine Qua Non's Storylines & Script Revision Lab, the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), the Seoul Film Commission, and the Wildflower Film Awards Korea.

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To support her own writing, she has worked across film as a screenwriter, producer, and editor, among many other roles, immersing herself in every aspect of filmmaking and deepening her understanding of narrative, character, and cinematic craft.

 

In the pauses between her words, she turns to her century-old violin and bow, narrating Bach’s 18th-century melodies into the silence. ​​

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