Yang Seungwoo’s photographs always prompt the same question: “How did he get that close?” For nearly 30 years, he has photographed the homeless, Yakuza, and others no one remembers. His photographs, taken from an almost impossibly close distance, are not the product of reporting but of time spent alongside his subjects. Yang makes a living cooking okonomiyaki on a festival street on the outskirts of Tokyo, while also being the first foreign photographer to win the prestigious Domon Ken Award for documentary photography. But he has an old friend who died without leaving behind a single photograph, and since his death he has carried his camera like a talisman. Like his photographs, which etch his own story onto the faces of strangers from a distance close enough to touch, this film captures Yang’s life and photographic world at a close range. The Best Days, also the title of his first photo book, becomes both a portrait of one person and a meditation on photography of a photographer who brings to light the lives unable to be remembered.
After working at Indicom Production and MBC, he is currently with the independent production company Artizan. He has primarily directed television documentaries. His major works include the EBS DocuPrime documentaries The End of Fish (2017), KIM Seungok, Mujin (2020), and Alpha Females (2024); the EBS Only One Earth: Humans and Animals Special - The Story Between You and Dolphins (2014); and the MBC special Paper Road (2010).
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
