Park Chan-wook Named First South Korean President of Cannes Film Festival Jury

Park Chan-wook will preside over the jury of the 79th Cannes Film Festival from May 12 to May 23, 2026, becoming the first South Korean filmmaker to lead the competition in the event's nearly eight-decade history. According to the festival's official announcement, the appointment places one of modern Korean cinema's most decorated auteurs at the center of Cannes' biggest prize conversation for the full length of the festival. That matters beyond symbolism. Cannes is not just honoring a beloved director. It is confirming that Korean cinema now sits inside the institution's core power structure, not on the outside waiting for another breakout moment. After years of Korean films shaping the global awards conversation, Park's presidency turns that long run of influence into official festival authority. It also gives Cannes a jury chief whose own filmography already helped define the festival's modern relationship with Korean cinema.

The appointment also lands with unusually strong historical weight because Park is succeeding Juliette Binoche while following two decades of Cannes recognition tied directly to his work. Festival de Cannes confirmed that Oldboy won the Grand Prix in 2004, Thirst took the Jury Prize in 2009, and Decision to Leave earned him Best Director in 2022. As reported by Festival de Cannes, that record makes him one of the few contemporary filmmakers whose relationship with the festival has evolved from prizewinner to institutional standard-bearer. We have watched Cannes embrace Korean cinema for years, but this is a different level of endorsement. Park is no longer arriving as a contender. He is returning as the person tasked with helping define what the world's most closely watched film festival rewards next. That shift from decorated guest to final arbiter is what makes this appointment genuinely historic.

A Cannes veteran with a deeper claim than simple prestige

Park has never been a ceremonial Cannes pick. His films changed how global audiences talked about Korean cinema, and the festival has tracked that arc in public. According to Festival de Cannes, Oldboy exploded onto the Croisette in 2004 and turned Park into a cult touchstone for a generation of filmmakers and critics who suddenly had to take Korean genre craftsmanship more seriously. Thirst then widened that reputation in 2009, while The Handmaiden and Decision to Leave proved he could keep evolving instead of endlessly remixing the same provocations. That matters because Cannes is not simply rewarding longevity here. It is elevating a director whose work has repeatedly helped the festival look sharp, international, and ahead of the curve whenever world cinema begins shifting again.

History in the making

Park is only the second Asian filmmaker to serve as Cannes jury president after Wong Kar-wai, who held the role 20 years earlier. The selection marks a deliberate turn toward recognizing Korean cinema's transformative influence on global film.

"Park Chan-wook's inventiveness, visual mastery, and penchant for capturing the multiple impulses of women and men with strange destinies have given contemporary cinema some truly memorable moments," festival president Iris Knobloch and director Thierry Frémaux said in the official Festival de Cannes announcement. "We are delighted to celebrate his immense talent and, more broadly, the cinema of a country deeply engaged with the questioning of our time."

The director's response

Park, whose latest film No Other Choice earned three Golden Globe nominations, offered a characteristically philosophical response to the appointment.

"The theater is dark so that we may see the light of cinema. We confine ourselves within the theater so that our souls may be liberated through the window of film," he said. "To be enclosed in a theater to watch films, and enclosed again to engage in debate with the members of the jury, this double, voluntary confinement is something I await with great anticipation."

Addressing the current geopolitical climate, Park added: "In this age of mutual hatred and division, I believe that the simple act of gathering in a theater to watch a single film together, our breaths and heartbeats aligning, is itself a moving and universal expression of solidarity."

Korean cinema's Cannes legacy

Park's presidency arrives as Korean filmmakers continue to dominate the international festival circuit. Bong Joon-ho became the first Korean director to win the Palme d'Or in 2019 with Parasite, which went on to make Oscar history as the first non-English-language film to win Best Picture.

The festival has championed Korean cinema since Im Kwon-taek won Best Director for Strokes of Fire in 2002. Hong Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong, Kim Jee-woon, and Yeon Sang-ho have all competed in subsequent years, establishing Korean film as a consistent presence in Cannes' marquee section.

According to Festival de Cannes, Park's jury awarded the 2026 Palme d'Or on Saturday, May 23, at the Grand Théâtre Lumière.