Min Sook Lee (Korean: 이민숙; born 1969) is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, screenwriter, academic, and political activist.^[1]

Early life

Lee was born in South Korea and immigrated to Canada with her family at the age of three, growing up in downtown Toronto, where her family owned a convenience store.^[2] Lee and her sisters worked long hours behind the counters, often translating for their parents, who did not speak English.^[2][3]

As a teenager, Lee joined the anti-apartheid movement in Toronto, which she credits with introducing her to political activism.^[3]

Film career

Lee is a self-taught documentary filmmaker who has directed eight feature documentaries, often focusing on labour, migration, and social justice issues.^[4]

Early in her career, Lee was news director at community radio station CKLN-FM from 1996 to 1998,^[5] an assistant to documentary filmmaker Sylvia Sweeney,^[5] and a news reporter at television station Toronto 1 from 2004 to 2005.^[6]

Lee's first feature film ,El Contrato (2003), showed migrant farm workers from Central Mexico facing harsh working conditions in Leamington, Ontario. In response, Leamington farmers issued a SLAPP suit which delayed the film's release by a year.^[7] Lee was awarded the Cesar E. Chavez Black Eagle Award for the film, which was also a nominee for the Donald Brittain Award for Best Social or Political Documentary at the 20th Gemini Awards in 2005.^[8]

Lee's 2005 film Hogtown: The Politics of Policing followed a dysfunctional City Hall struggle over the Toronto Police Service's budget during a wave of violent gun crimes and police corruption scandals.^[9] The film won the Best Canadian Feature Documentary award at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.^[10]

Her 2008 film Tiger Spirit told the story of Korean families divided by the Korean War and the border between North Korea and South Korea,^[11] and won the Donald Brittain Award at the 24th Gemini Awards in 2009.^[12]

She subsequently directed My Toxic Baby (2009), about toxins in baby products; The Real MASH (2010), which tells the story of the real people who inspired the movie and television series M*A*S*H; Badge of Pride (2010), about LGBT police officers; and The Real Inglorious Bastards (2012), about Frederick Mayer and his company of European Jewish refugees.^[13]

The Real Inglorious Bastards won the Canadian Screen Award for Best History or Biography Documentary Program or Series at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards in 2014,^[14] where Lee also received a nomination for Best Direction in a Documentary Program.^[15]

Lee was co-creator of the television sitcom She's the Mayor, which aired on VisionTV.^[16]

In 2016, Lee revisited the theme of migrant workers in Canada in her film Migrant Dreams, which examined the plight of a group of mostly Indonesian migrant workers entering Canada through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.^[17] She was awarded the Canadian Hillman Prize, which honours journalists whose work identifies important social and economic issues in Canada,^[18] and the Canadian Association of Journalists Award for Labour Reporting. It also received an honorable mention from the Colin Low Award jury at the 2016 DOXA Documentary Film Festival,^[19] and was shortlisted for the Donald Brittain Award at the 6th Canadian Screen Awards.^[20]

In 2012, the Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts named the Min Sook Lee Labour Arts Award in Lee's honour for her contribution to the cause of migrant workers,^[21] citing her work to "engage non-arts audiences, and that challenges Eurocentric notions of art".^[22][23]

Lee is an assistant professor at OCAD University, where her teaching and research focus on the relationship between art and social change. She previously taught documentary filmmaking at Ryerson University's School of Image Arts MFA program.^[21][24]

Political activity

Lee was the New Democratic Party candidate in Toronto—Danforth for the 2019 federal election.^[3] In her campaign, she committed to bring in a one per cent super-wealth tax on households with a net wealth of more than $20 million. The Parliamentary Budget Office has estimated that this measure could bring in $70 billion in new revenue.

On election night, Lee finished in second with 33.2 per cent of the vote to incumbent Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin.^[25]

References