Juyeon Song
By: STEVE INDIG PR online
Thy Name is Woman – Tristan and Isolde
An Experimental Documentary Film
Laemmle Monica Film Center, Los Angeles — September 19–25, 2025
FILM SYNOPSIS
The story follows a Swedish opera singer who collapses during a performance of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” and is admitted to a psychiatric clinic. Thirteen years later, living in seclusion, she begins to imagine herself as women from different eras from Princess Isolde in 500 AD to a “modern-day mother” — creating a haunting meditation on “ identity, memory, and survival”.
https://www.juyeonsongpd.com/tristan-and-isolde-thy-name-is-woman
CREDITS
Director - Selcuk Cara
Producer - Juyeon Song
Cast - Anna Süheyla Harms, Sophia Su Cara
Cinematography - Thomas Förster
Music - Sonja Cara
Song and Cara warmly invite critics, press, and cinephiles to this exclusive Los Angeles engagement.
Press can RSVP per details below, and can also request online viewing.
SCREENING DETAILS
📍Venue
Laemmle Monica Film Center
1332 2nd Street, Santa Monica, CA
📅 Dates
September 19 – 25, 2025
Daily showtimes: 1:00, 2:50, 7:15
🎟️ Tickets
https://www.laemmle.com/film/thy-name-woman-isolde-and-tristan
Press Contact, including press RSVPs to view film during the engagement
Juyeon Song
About Juyeon Song
Korean American Soprano Opera Singer and multi-international award–winning producer Juyeon Song proudly announces the Los Angeles theatrical run of her debut feature film, the Academy Award–qualified Thy Name is Woman – Tristan and Isolde, at the historic Laemmle Monica Film Center from September 19–25, 2025.
A luminous meditation on feminine strength, silence, and survival, Song’s debut film has already received multiple international awards. One reviewer described it as: “Probably the most unusual adaptation of Tristan and Isolde in the context of the life and struggles of women in general throughout the centuries.”
She made history as the first Asian soprano to both produce two concert-version live performances of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, performing the title role of Isolde, which was also captured as a live recording in Poland. She also produced Verdi’s Nabucco (Concert Version) in a historic San Francisco synagogue.
When the global pandemic silenced performance halls, Song transformed stillness into creation. Guided by her vision of art without boundaries, she collaborated with international award-winning director Selcuk Cara to produce three films that became catalysts for bold multicultural projects, with cinema as their unifying language. This female-led venture emerged as both quiet resistance and radical renewal—a testament to resilience, imagination, and a luminous vision for the future of art.
She is currently planning on a world tour with her three films, a multidisciplinary, multicultural project with Selcuk Cara.
About Selcuk Cara
Thy Name is Woman – Tristan and Isolde is directed by Selcuk Cara, an internationally acclaimed filmmaker who creates groundbreaking films and multidisciplinary projects with cinema as their core. With more than 180 international awards, Cara brings a visionary perspective to this collaboration.
SELCUK CARA: Transforming
Before studying philosophy with Jürgen Habermas and subsequently studying operatic singing with Eike Wilm Schulte, Selcuk Cara was a competitive athlete. He became vice European champion in jazz dance, participated in the German championships in basketball and is a holder of the third master degree in a Korean martial art.
Selcuk Cara ended his career as an opera singer in the Wagnerian year 2013 in the role of Hagen ("The Ring of the Nibelung") at the Lower Saxony Music Days; as a concert singer in 2014 at the Beethovenfest Bonn with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony "Ode to Joy".
He is a doctoral candidate in musicology, the subject of his thesis: "The Ring of the Nibelung -Decay of Family Structures as a Dramaturgical Device in Richard Wagner's Ring Tetralogy", previously diploma examination on "Tristan und Isolde".
Further studies of directing as well as scenography as MA master studies.
Master classes with Vittorio Storaro, Vilmos Zsigmond, Gus Van Sant, Mike Figgis, Christopher Doyle and Dennis Hopper, among others. Over 180 international awards as an auteur filmmaker such as the Alaska International Film Award, the Panavision Award, the American Movie Award, North American Film Award, and an invitation to the New York City International Film Festival.
Recognition of his work by being rated "especially valuable" by the German Film and Media Rating (FBW).
He is the first Turkish-born director to win the Yerevan International Film Festival in Armenia.
In 2016 he is part of the nomination jury of the "BVR-German Directing Award Metropolis" and the Grand Jury Zion Red Rock Film Festival, USA.
2016 Publication of the Spiegel bestseller "Turk, but still intelligent", inclusion in the libraries of the memorial and educational site "Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz" and the International Tracing Service ITS - thus part of the UNESCO World Documentary Heritage.
2017 Opening of the Brecht Festival as director, set designer, costume designer and lighting designer with Bertolt Brecht's and Hanns Eisler's "The Measure". 2018 international debut as opera director at the Prague State Opera.
2019 German debut "Internationale Maifestspiele Wiesbaden".
2019 opening of the Brahms Festival Lübeck with Udo Zimmermann's "Weiße Rose".
2020 Artistic direction, conception, production management, direction, stage, lighting, costume and spoken word for "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" 2020 artistic direction, conception, production management, direction, stage, lighting, costume and spoken text for "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" world premiere as part of the application for the title European Capital of Culture 2025 on the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds Nuremberg 2020.
2021 Awards for his feature-length film "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg", including Hollywood New Director, International Independent Film Festival Philadelphia, International Chicago Arthouse Film Festival, Rhode Island International Film Festival, USA.
At Leipzig Opera with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in the 2021/2022 season: production, stage, lighting and film for "Fascination Wagner” with Internationally Acclaimed Helden Tenor Andrea Schager.
After "The Mastersingers of Nuremberg" and "Fascination Wagner" ("The Ring of the Nibelung"), Selcuk Cara is currently working on three further major international, interdisciplinary projects:
1. Richard Wagner: "Tristan and Isolde"
2. Richard Wagner: "The Ring of the Nibelung"
3. Giuseppe Verdi: "Messa da Requiem"
The performances are planned for late 2026-2030 in the USA, Europe and Asia.
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