Sunday, May 26, 2019
NEWSMAKERS
‘Parasite’ takes top award at Cannes
CANNES, France
South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s raucous social satire “Parasite,” about a poor family of hustlers who find jobs with a wealthy family, won the Cannes Film Festival’s top award, the Palme d’Or, on Saturday.
The win for “Parasite” marks the first Korean film to win the Palme. In the festival’s closing ceremony, jury president Alejandro Inarritu said the choice had been “unanimous” for the nine-person jury.
The genre-mixing film, Bong’s seventh, had arguably been celebrated more than others at Cannes this year, hailed by critics as the best yet from the 49-year-old director of “Snowpiercer” and “Okja.”
“It’s the 100th anniversary of the cinema in Korea this year. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Korean cinema, I think the Cannes Film Festival has offered me a very great gift,” Bong told reporters after the ceremony.
It was the second straight Palme victory for an Asian director.
Many of the awards on Saturday were given to social and political stories that depicted geopolitical dramas in localized tales, from African shores to Paris suburbs.
Associated Press