After graduating from the School of Film, TV, & Multimedia at Korea National University of Arts, Heo Chul-nyung majored in documentary at the KNUA graduate school. He served as co-director of the short documentary A Noted Place (2010), and then directed his first feature documentary The Remanent People (2012). This film was screened in the competition section of the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival and the Seoul Independent Film Festival. He was also invited to the Busan International Film Festival and the Seoul Independent Film Festival with The Whispering Trees in 2017.