EL
Video Art, Single Channel, 35 min, Color, Stereo Sound, 2025
Set in the former Yamato Hotel—now the Liaoning Hotel—in Shenyang, Northeast China, “EL” follows Sansaee, a Korean poet who takes a job there after growing weary of her life in Korea. At the hotel, she meets Fei, a Chinese opera performer. As they grow closer, Fei realizes that, although she has spent her whole life touring with a troupe, she has never truly wandered. Meanwhile, Sansae begins to experience recurring dreams—visiting layered ruins filled with traces of local history and trauma. Even when awake, she continues to move through these invisible spaces. Through her time in the hotel, she writes about a love that exceeds definition and ultimately decides to leave again.
My role: Colorist
Artist: Mooni Perry
All cast & crew
DIRECTOR
Mooni Perry
SCRIPT
Mooni Perry
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Eugene Hannah Park
LOCAL PRODUCER
Zihan Chen
LEAD CAST
Chamsae Bak
Rui Zhang
SUPPORTING CAST (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE)
Kuizhe Li
Yuxuan Cui
Pan He
Zihan Chen
Lian Guang
ManMan
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director of Cinematography: Yan Yifan
1st Assistant of Cinematography: Chaoyang Wang
Focus Puller: Weijian Wang
Gaffer: Melo Zou
Gaffer Assistant: If Zhang
Sound Recordist: Ceyuan Zhang
Sound Recording Assistant: Xiaoda Liu
Sound Logger: Kuizhe Li
Clapper Loader: Kuizhe Li
MAKEUP & SPECIAL EFFECTS MAKEUP
Opera Makeup Artist: Yan Zhang
Opera Makeup Assistant: Shujin Chen
Blood Makeup Artist: Xiaoyu Yu
LOCAL COORDINATOR & RESEARCHER
Pan He, Kuizhe Li, Yuxuan Cui, Moon-seok Yi
POST PRODUCTION
Editor: Mooni Perry
Colorist: Markus Rack
English Proofreader: Christina Yuna Ko
Music/Sound: Minhwi Lee
TEXT REFERENCES
Excerpt from A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit, © Viking, 2005
Excerpt from A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes
Translated by Richard Howard, © Hill and Wang, 1978
Excerpt from Exquisitely Melancholic Self-Consciousness by
Chamsae Bak, © Maumsanchaek, 2025
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Frieren Group (Christina Yuna Ko, Sun Park, Eugene Hannah Park), Chaeyoung Kim, Li Xiaotian, Yuzhou Ding, Fei Luo, Sirui Zhang, Zhu Zijing, Zhibo Xu, Feng You, Yan Lin, Wang Tuo, Yang Beichen, Jiehua Huang, Yindi Chen, Jianan Wang, Sam Shiyi Qian
LOCATION
Liaoning Hotel, Shenyang, China
Changchun Jingyuetan National Scenic Area, Changchun, China
Changjiang Road, Changchun, China
724 district, Shenyang, China
Shenyang Guest House, Shenyang, China
COMMISSIONED BY
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea
MACA Art Center
