Lee Choong-jik has been appointed as new festival director for South Korea’s Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF).

Lee is a professor at Chung-Ang University’s graduate school and previously served as head of the Korean Film Council (KOFIC, known at the time as the Korean Film Commission) from 2002-2005.

He will start his three-year term on August 1.

After graduating from Chung-Ang University’s film and drama department for undergrad and graduate studies, Lee went to the Ecole Supérieur de Réalisation Audio-Visuelle (ESRA) in France and graduated as a film directing major.

His previous experience also includes serving as festival director at the first Seoul International Independent Film Festival; a jury member for the second Busan International Film Festival’s Wide Angle section; head of KOFIC’s committee to promote digital cinema when it was first being integrated in Korea; dean of Chung-Ang University’s graduate school of Advanced Imaging Science, Multimedia & Film; and a member of the JIFF festival committee.

Lee’s producer credits include films such as The Pot, Sogyumo Acacia Band’s Story and Enlightenment Film.

JIFF’s organizing committee cited Lee’s experience in academia, industry and policy in their decision to appoint him.

Lee said he would aim to find ways to build on JIFF’s founding strengths and characteristics of ‘digital,’ ‘independent,’ and ‘alternative’ cinema to “establish an identity that suits in a new way the current times”.