Vancouver-based director wins award at VIFF

A narrative feature by Vancouver-based actor and director Jerome Yoo won the Horizon Award, presented by the Directors Guild of Canada, at the 43rd Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) earlier this fall. 

Mongrels was largely shot in Maple Ridge, and the main message of the film is the hope and love that lies “at the end of the gruelling tunnel of grief,” Yoo wrote in an email statement to The Runner. 

At the centre of the plot is a grieving Korean family who, after losing their mother, immigrate to a small Canadian Prairie town in the 1990s, embarking on a new life in an unfamiliar environment. They quickly learn the town is full of wild dogs who have been destroying farmers’ crops. 

The main character and father of two children, Sonny Lee, played by Korean actor Jae-Hyun Kim, gradually realizes these wild dogs are the only creatures in the town the family can relate to. 

In the film, Sonny represents the gap between the older and younger generations and allows the audience to see the world through the prism of adaptations in a new and unfamiliar environment. 

Sonny’s son, Hajoon Lee, struggles between family duty and freedom as he longs for acceptance, and the daughter, Hana Lee, represents a naive and limitless perception of the world, not subject to the systems and restrictions that society sets, Yoo wrote.

“The film portrays grief and its many colours,” he wrote.

“Whether man or beast, life is fragile, so I tried to turn the lens to how we exist in this world and the mortality we all share. Grief isn’t just sorrow, it’s a spectrum of emotions that shape how we see ourselves, our relationships, and the world around us. I wanted to capture how loss connects us, even in its most isolating moments.”  

Though the film is fictional, it was inspired by Yoo’s upbringing in Canada, which can be seen in layers and nuances through the film. 

“Some characters have names of the people from my personal life I was inspired by, and the Larson family’s dog, King Kong, is named after my own pet,” he wrote. 

Yoo, who is from South Korea, primarily grew up in Coquitlam and Port Moody, where there was a large Korean diaspora, allowing his parents to preserve their cultural values around him. 

Since academic achievements were highly valued in Yoo’s family, art was considered a distraction with fewer prospects for the future. He ended up attending the University of British Columbia where he pursued a bachelor’s degree in science. But this didn’t stop him from later building a career by playing small roles in various Vancouver-shot T.V. shows. 

With a curiosity in writing, Yoo decided to submit a short film script to the Telus Storyhive grant, which led to funding for his project. However, no one was available to direct his short film, so Yoo took on the duty himself. 

“I never went to film school to learn the craft or process so I learned it all on the fly,” he wrote. “My team gave me the confidence that all I needed to know was the story and how to work with my actors.” 

Yoo wrote that winning the VIFF award was an incredible honour. 

“I was already ecstatic to premiere the film with my hometown festival, but receiving the Horizon Award will forever make it more memorable.”