A Day's March with Nim Kyong Ran

In A DAY'S MARCH WITH, our mission is to tell the stories of everyday triumphs and troubles, through people that shape the business of culture. This time, we meet with Stockholm-based film director Nim Kyong Ran.

Stockholm-based director Nim Kyong Ran found her voice through film early on in her life. She started as an aspiring actor and ended up as a film director, signed at the mere age of 20 and was quickly praised for her poetic film language. Whether it is directing a commercial, music video or short film, Kyong Ran is interested in the human aspect of the profession.

”I’m interested in all the quirks and ticks, that makes us who we are,” she says from her home office – a room dedicated to film, from the storyboards on the wall to reference literature and props from sets. “Like the fact that I can spot my sister in a mile’s distance, just because of the way she walks. Or that I can hear that it’s my best friend coming up the stairs, because of the pace of her steps and the rattle of her jewelry.”

Kyong Ran recalls one of her teachers during acting school, Antonio Alonzo, who really sharpened her way to observe the world. ”We got all kinds of crazy homework, acting out scenes on the subway, mimicking the body language of the person walking ahead of us to school…,” she says. ”The purpose was to find character traits for acting, but I’ve brought that mindset into my trade as a director. Trying to figure out what it is it that make people feel natural and what makes an actor truly transform into another person.”

In recent years, Kyong Ran has increasingly focused on the development of her own narrative projects between her commercial work. Such as her short film English, please about her interrogation by the Tokyo police, See me which is a series of short films about sexual harassment and rape, Mara, a feature film about people with exhaustion syndrome and her upcoming short film No man’s land, depicting a dying man’s last day in life.

Whether it is on a march through the city with her favorite soundtrack, working with her team on the last details of the film, or writing a new script, Kyong Ran finds energy and inspiration from the variation of her work. ”No day is the same,” she says. ”Some days I’m surrounded by a huge crew, visiting odd places and meeting new people –– and some days it’s just me in a cafe, watching the world turn to while writing one of my own in my head.” Photography and video by Christopher Hunt Words by Jonna Dagliden Hunt

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