Moowon Kim

Selected Work

Directed, produced, and finished end-to-end

From generative pipelines to theatrical VFX — concept, direction, production, and final delivery.

AI Short Film · 2025

Faces of the Unknown

Written, directed, and finished as an AI-native short film. Selected at 8 international AI film festivals including AI Film Awards Cannes 2026, Las Vegas AI Film Festival, and Seoul International AI Film Festival.

DirectionGenerative VideoVFX FinishSound & Edit

VFX Reel · Feature Film

Theatrical VFX Reel — ILM & Dexter Studios

Modeling, texturing, lookdev, and lighting work across major theatrical productions: Pacific Rim, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Strange Magic (ILM Singapore), and Along With The Gods, Kung Fu Yoga, Journey to the West (Dexter Studios).

ModelingLookdevLightingCG Supervision

Watch on Vimeo →

Private reel — plays inline above, no login needed. If Vimeo ever asks for a password, use 4754.

Original IP

MONO MARS — a character franchise built in public

Created and directed a 20-episode AI-hybrid short-form series, released episodically on Instagram — vertical-first storytelling, serialized cliffhangers, and a global following built without paid distribution. It grew into an international theatrical co-production (Korea–France–Italy, agreement signed at MIPCOM Cannes 2024 — details below), and became the brand character for Hankook Tire Formula E World Championship (3 seasons, brand IG 10K → 220K), Seoul City, Samsung TV Channel, and Korea Aerospace University.

IP CreationSeries DirectionBrand CampaignsCo-Production

@mono_mars

MONO MARS — Emotional AI robot · Created, directed & produced by Moowon Kim

143KFollowers

209Posts

25M+Views / 90d

View profile

Origin — who Mono really is

Ep.16 — What is Greeny, really?

Ep.17 — A strange robot appears

Ep.18 — Greeny's tragedy

Ep.19 — After the accident

Ep.20 — Greeny vanishes

Latest — character design still

Festival — Seoul Int'l AI Film Festival

Brand campaign — Hankook Tire × ABB FIA Formula E World Championship

MONO MARS was appointed the official brand character of Hankook Tire's Formula E partnership and fronted the campaign across three championship seasons — race films, product spots for the iON EV tire line, and sustainability content, directed and produced in-house and published on the MONO MARS channel.

3 seasons · Official brand character
youtube.com/@monomars →

Hankook iON mode activated — Formula E race film

iON mode is activated! — Formula E race film

iON makes a difference in a Formula E race

iON Materials Checkpoint — sustainability spot

MONO MARS 0 — Fragments of Deleted Memory, cinematic visual novel

Novel — MONO MARS 0: Fragments of Deleted Memory

MONO MARS 0 — 삭제된 기억의 파편 · Written by Moowon Kim

Wrote and published the origin novel of the franchise — a cinematic visual novel that predates the Instagram series and supplies the backstory the films are built on. Serialized chapter by chapter on its own reader site in Korean and English, with illustrated key art throughout.

Cinematic visual novelAuthorKorean & EnglishSerialized online

Read the novel →

In Development

MONO MARS: ORIGIN — theatrical animated feature

A memory-erased emotional AI robot wakes among the ruins of a collapsed city and journeys with other broken souls to find what it means to be more human than human. Written and directed by me, adapted from my own novel, produced as a three-country international co-production.

Part I

EARTH: Origin of Emotion

100 min · target release 2028

Part II

MARS: Origin of Life

100 min · target release 2029

Format

3D animated theatrical feature
Two parts · 100 min each

Co-production

Korea · France · Italy
CGTale · Something Big

Agreement

MIPCOM Cannes, Oct 2024
Korea Content Highlight signing

My role

Director · Original creator
Writer of the source novel

The AI short Faces of the Unknown is the prequel to this feature — made to prove the hybrid pipeline before committing it to a 200-minute production. Same director, same IP, same workflow: generative AI for volume and iteration, traditional VFX craft for the shots AI still can't finish.

Feature DirectionOriginal ScreenplayInternational Co-ProductionAI-VFX Hybrid Pipeline

Recognition

8 international AI film festival selections

For Faces of the Unknown (2025) — third-party validation of direction and taste, not just tooling.

MONO MARS: Faces of the Unknown — official poster

MONO MARS: Faces of the Unknown (2025)

AI Film Awards Cannes 2026

Las Vegas AI Film Festival

Seoul International AI Film Festival 2025

AIFilm Awards Bali 2025

Pulse of Animation Festival 2025

Australian AI Festival 2025

Nikola Tesla Film Festival 2025

Hollywood AI Short Film Awards 2026

Experience

From ILM to AI-native direction

Feb 2026 — Present · Seoul

Dexter Studios

AI VFX Team Leader (R&D Lab)

Leading the AI VFX R&D team; supervising generative AI across 7 concurrent global feature/OTT productions — previs, environment generation, and character consistency, delivering shots traditionally infeasible with conventional VFX at theatrical quality bar. Translating MONO MARS AI methodology into theatrical-scale VFX infrastructure.

Jun 2018 — Dec 2025 · Seoul / Global

CGTALE Studios

Founder / Creative Director

Created and directed MONO MARS IP. Led a feature theatrical animation project from scratch to full international co-production (Korea–France–Italy). Directed brand collaborations with Formula E, Seoul City, and Samsung TV.

Mar 2017 — Dec 2017 · Shanghai

Yoozoo Games

CG Executive Director

Directed high-fidelity game cinematics and promotional campaigns; led internal and external art teams.

Apr 2014 — Sep 2016 · Seoul

Dexter Studios

CG Supervisor / 3D Generalist

Feature VFX on Along With The Gods, Kung Fu Yoga, Journey to the West — modeling, texturing, lookdev, and lighting on complex 3D sequences.

Jun 2010 — Jun 2013 · Singapore

Industrial Light & Magic (Lucasfilm)

3D Modeler

Credits: Pacific Rim (2013), Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013), Strange Magic (2015).

Directed, produced, and finished end-to-end

Faces of the Unknown

Theatrical VFX Reel — ILM & Dexter Studios

MONO MARS — a character franchise built in public

Brand campaign — Hankook Tire × ABB FIA Formula E World Championship

Novel — MONO MARS 0: Fragments of Deleted Memory

MONO MARS: ORIGIN — theatrical animated feature

EARTH: Origin of Emotion

MARS: Origin of Life

8 international AI film festival selections

From ILM to AI-native direction

Craft stack

Generative AI

3D / VFX

Post / Edit

Let's make something that holds up on a big screen.