Chul Heo is a filmmaker and media scholar. Chul's interests symbiotically complement each other, as a theorist and artist, by combining theory and praxis, academia and industry, and fiction with nonfiction to improve our media culture. As a teacher, it is his goal to inspire the next generation of filmmakers and media scholars who can voice their creative visions in the mainstream as well as independent operatives.

Chul has directed three feature films which have been released in theaters nationwide in South Korea. The most recent fiction, “The Return” (2017), won the Golden Zenith Award, winner in the First Fiction World Competition at the 41st Montreal World Film Festival. His two nonfictional feature films, “Ari Ari the Korean Cinema” (2012) and “Mira Story” (2015), which made a national controversy in South Korea by raising the critical views on the role of the government and capitalistic power in filmmaking and local community respectively, and have been screened in international film festivals in Paris, Bhutan, Busan, and Irvine.

He has been very active in advocating marginalized voices in society by making more than fifteen short films both in Korea and America. Tackling Asian American identity issues, his debut film "Between Two Worlds" (1996/1998, 30 min.) triggered a national conversation about Asianness in the United States and received awards in Rochester International Film Festival, Asian Cinevision Video Showcase and Sinking Creek Film Festival. His various other short films received international recognitions and screenings in Paris, Riyadh, Taipei, Milano, Istanbul, New York City, Chicago, Williamstown, Davis, Rochester, Nashville, and San Francisco. Also, Chul participated in television documentaries and talk shows for PBS in New York City and MBC network in Korea as a director, producer, and host.

Prior to joining ADM at NTU, Chul taught various film and television courses in theory and practice at Korea University and San Francisco State University. He received his Ph.D. in media studies from the University of Iowa and M.F.A. from Brooklyn College, City University of New York (CUNY).