You Left Me a Ghost
2024 | 21m 29s | English and Korean
Short Film Series
February 7 at 3:30 PM
2026 CAPE Short FIlm
For far too long, Hollywood has been an insular, exclusive club…and somewhat of a “boys’ club” at that.
But times are changing. CAPE joined forces with the immediate past president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Emmy Award– and Golden Globe–winning Hollywood producer Janet Yang in 2022 to start the Julia S. Gouw Short Film Challenge, which provides short film production grants and unparalleled networking opportunities to Asian and Pacific Islander women and non-binary filmmakers.
CAPE will moderate a panel with the filmmakers following the short film screenings.
After her brother dies, Bennie Kim imagines venturing into the afterlife to reunite with him. But as she learns the rules of his fragile "heaven," Bennie must decide for herself what it truly means to choose life after enduring heartbreaking loss. This surrealist horror film is an ultimately hopeful journey through the subconscious experience of grief.
Summary
Starring:
Crystal Park, Sook Hyung Yang, Sean Choi
About the Filmmaker:
Kristy Hyunsoo Choi makes films across hybrid and narrative formats about desire, freedom, and belonging through the lenses of Asian femme subjectivity and the Korean diaspora. She is also interested in stories about the material and immaterial conditions of art-making and sociopolitical revolution.
Kristy is currently working on her next short hybrid film, Sing Peak, and her debut narrative feature film, Pentimento, which she developed at the 2025 Cine Qua Non Lab.
Her short film HERSELVES was acquired and released by The New Yorker and is free to stream worldwide. The film has been studied at USC and Pitzer College. Read more about HERSELVES on The New Yorker.
Her short film Excerpts from a Field Guide was commissioned and released by REI and is free to stream worldwide.
She also produced an Emmy-nominated episode of the "Asian American Stories of Resilience and Beyond" series for PBS WORLD Channel and was an associate producer on the groundbreaking documentary Israelism.
Kristy was a Julia S. Gouw Challenge Winner and a recipient of the North Star Fellowship at Points North Institute and the Armed with a Camera Fellowship at Visual Communications. Her work has received support from Frieze, California Arts Council, The Asian American Foundation, Creative Capital, and more.
In addition to her filmmaking, Kristy pursues long-form writing. Her investigative report on Wah Luck House in Washington, D.C.'s Chinatown was published in the Washington City Paper and on NPR.
She received a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University and a Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) Post-Graduate Fellowship from Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.