Actor and director Lee Joo-seung has taken on a new role as a film festival jury member, revealing on MBC’s “I Live Alone” that he will judge 50 short films for the 2026 Seongbuk Youth Invincible Film Festival.
The reveal came in episode 672 of the long-running reality show, which aired on November 6 at 11:10 p.m. KST. Lee told his fellow cast members that the opportunity had come his way because of his work behind the camera. “As a short film director, a chance to judge at a film festival came my way,” he said, announcing that he had joined the short film competition jury for the festival.
The workload is considerable. Lee said he will watch around eight films a day over a set period, working through all 50 finalists before sitting down with his fellow judges to decide the winners. As he watches, he writes encouraging comments and score sheets in a notebook, one film at a time. When Kian84 asked whether he watches all 50 films in a single day, Lee explained that the final round is 50 films — but the preliminary round involved more than 1,000 entries.
The episode showed Lee settling in for the task at his kitchen table, with a laptop, a notebook, and a glass of tomato juice laid out in front of him. Cameras followed him as he focused intently on each film on his laptop screen, pausing to write his scores and comments by hand. He also shared his own detailed judging criteria on the show, offering viewers a look at how a working short film director evaluates other filmmakers’ work.
His close friend Koo Sung-hwan was delighted by the news, praising Lee with the words, “This director is doing so well.” The show itself playfully framed the appointment as a step along the path taken by directors Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho, who both rose from short films to global acclaim, dubbing Lee its “Rainbow master” — a nod to the show’s “Rainbow members.”
The jury role caps a breakout year behind the camera for Lee. He recently won the director survival program “Director’s Arena,” taking the 100 million won top prize — and then donated the entire amount to single-parent families, a gesture that drew wide praise and put his directing ambitions firmly in the spotlight.
Lee debuted as an actor in 2008 with the film “The Dog of Cheonggyecheon” and built his career through the film “Socialphobia” and dramas including “Happiness” and “Flowers Bloom in the Sand.” In recent years he has become a fixture on “I Live Alone,” the MBC reality series that follows the everyday lives of single celebrities, where he previously drew attention for his unusual daily routines. This time, the show presented a different side of him: not the quirky housemate, but a working director taking his craft seriously.
That dual identity as actor and director is exactly what makes the jury appointment notable. Rather than a celebrity name added for publicity, Lee was invited because he makes short films himself, and his comments on the show suggested he takes the responsibility seriously: careful viewing, detailed notes, and a written word of encouragement for every filmmaker whose work reaches him.
The episode aired on November 6, with Lee’s jury work shown as his latest “main job” moment on the program. With 50 films to watch and a winners’ list to help decide, the actor-turned-director now has a very full notebook — and a judging debut that puts him, at least in the show’s playful framing, on the same road once walked by Korea’s most celebrated filmmakers.
