John W. Kim is a Korean-American writer and director of film and television and former journalist.
 
He began writing plays and fiction in high school as well as performing, becoming a founding member of Shakespeare Santa Cruz, where he acted with members of the Royal Shakespeare Company under the direction of Audrey Stanley, the first woman to run a Shakespeare festival in the United States. He graduated with honors in Literature and Creative Writing, studying under novelist James D. Houston, playwrite George Hitchcock, and poet Lynn Luria-Sukenick, publishing his short story collection “Earth Fires,” about his experiences as a Korean American boy growing up in Northern California. There he made his first films under the guidance of experimental filmmaker Eli Hollander.

He then attended USC’s School of Cinema-Television, where he studied with instructors Ivan Passer (“Cutters Way”), Frank Pierson (“Dog Day Afternoon”), and Franklin Daniel. His graduate work was screened at a number of national festivals, including the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, Edinburgh Los Angeles Film Festival, and the New York Asian-American Film Festival. His short films have screened at the Motion Picture Academy and the Director’s Guild of America.

His screenplays have received notice in a number of national competitions and fellowships, including multiple Quarterfinalist and Semifinalist placements in the Motion Picture Academy Nicholl Fellowship, Austin Screenplay and Television pilot competitions and the Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab. His script of “Reunion” was awarded the Silver Prize in Comedy by the Page International Screenplay Competition. His most recent project, the animated television pilot “Urban Defender,” written with co-creator Will Griffin and based on an original IP comic, is currently in development, as is his next feature project, “The Request,” a dark Crime Thriller set in a corrupt, modern day America.