James Choi is an award-winning Chicago-based filmmaker and an assistant professor at DePaul University’s School of Cinematic Arts. He’s produced multiple award-winning films, including Made in China, which won our Silver Hugo in 2009, and Saint Frances, which won the SXSW Special Jury Award in 2019. He also won our 2022 CIX:Lab pitch with his project All Things Considered, and his 2024 short film Resonancia screened at our 60th Festival in the City & State program.
James’ new film Before the Call makes its World Premiere at the #ChiFilmFest Oct. 25 & 26.
You made your new film Before the Call while on a sabbatical in South Korea. How did that project come to fruition?
The festival in many ways played a direct role in the journey of this film. I went to Korea for my sabbatical with the intention of making a different script, All Things Considered, which had won the CIX Development Lab here at the Chicago International Film Festival’s Industry Days in 2022. Having the festival’s support meant the world to me, and I was determined to get the film made, despite not having any financing secured. I had locked two of the cast members Andy Koh and Seong-guk Ha when that same script was selected for the Tubi x Black List “To Be Commissioned Initiative.” It was a dream scenario, but it put that project on a different timeline. With a couple of weeks left in my trip, I still wanted to make something with Andy and Seong-guk. That’s how Before the Call was born. We shot the entire film in seven days with a skeleton crew of four: our DP Subin Kim, sound operator Dong Hyeon Kim, and two first-time producers, Jeesoo Lee and Yeon Joo Suh. My longtime creative partner, Judi Krant, was a lifeline from back in Austin. It was a fever dream of a shoot. I left Korea with my family who was there with me for 6 months two days after we wrapped.
The film is about a Korean American returning to Seoul and deciding to enlist in the military amidst escalating global crises, despite being exempt from service. Is there any piece of you in the story?
This is a deeply personal story. I was born in Korea, but I hadn’t been back since I was five years old, when my parents immigrated to the States. Growing up, I always felt caught between two cultures. Returning to my birth country for the first time as an adult, I was flooded with lots of raw emotions. Through Jinwoo, I explored the question: What sacrifices are we willing to make to feel like we belong? At the same time, like many of us, I was carrying a profound sense of helplessness amidst so much global tragedy, and I wanted to dig into that tension, the way empathy and action often stop at the borders of our own lives. It was this struggle between helplessness and the desire to act that fueled the story
The film stars Andy Koh in his feature debut — how did you find him and why did you cast him?
When I first arrived in Korea, I knew no one except for a few family members who weren’t connected to the arts. So I posted on social media arts pages looking for people who were interested in collaborating on a film. Andy’s partner, Jeesoo, who ended up serving as one of the producers, reached out. As we were auditioning the rest of the cast, I was shooting short scenes with Andy as the one constant. While this is his feature debut, there’s often a rawness and immediacy to actors with less experience. Andy already had a natural ease in front of the camera, performing regularly on his social media channel. So when the other project’s timeline shifted, I wrote Before the Call specifically for him. As a Korean American living in Seoul now, military enlistment was something Andy had personally grappled with, which gave the film an emotional honesty I believed was essential.
You’ve been heavily involved in the Chicago film scene for a while — teaching at DePaul, producing local projects (like the award-winning Saint Frances), and more. What do you think makes the Chicago filmmaking scene unique?
There’s a kind of stubborn independence in Chicago’s creative scene. After spending more than a decade in Hollywood, I really appreciate the different rhythm here. In LA or New York, cities I also love, there’s often a pretense and a strong influence from the industry at large. Chicago doesn’t have that as much. It truly is, as they say, a city with a blue-collar work ethic and that applies to its artists as well. You’re almost pushed to embrace limitations and take risks, and tell stories grounded in a reality you can feel on any street corner. For someone who works in the indie film space, I love that! And of course, the city is filled with incredibly talented artists across all genres.
How does it feel to have your film make its World Premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival?
It feels like the perfect full-circle moment. My very first feature as a producer, Made in China, won the Silver Hugo here at the Festival back in 2009. That screening played a role for me moving back to Chicago from Los Angeles and building my career here as both an educator at DePaul and a filmmaker. Now, sixteen years later, to be back with a new feature as a writer, director… It’s kinda surreal. It’s also a powerful reminder of how long and winding this journey has been, and yet, how much it still feels like I’m just getting started.
You’re a certifiable Chicagoan — and your Instagram features some beautiful photos of people and places throughout the city. What makes Chicago cinematic, and what’s one location you’d have to include if you shoot a film here?
For me, what makes Chicago cinematic isn’t just the skyline or a single landmark, which are world class, but the way light moves across the city and how people carry themselves through it. I see cinema in the quiet of Lake Michigan at sunrise, in the Red Line rattling past late at night, in the laughter that spills out of a classic neighborhood tavern, the kind nestled between apartment buildings on an otherwise quiet residential street or the way someone waits for the bus in the biting wind. Chicago reveals its poetry in ordinary moments, and that’s what I love to capture because this city makes everyday feel like a scene in a film.
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