PARIS – The K-wave is ready to take the Croisette.

South Korean director Park Chan-Wook will serve as jury president of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, marking the first time a Korean filmmaker has been appointed to the role.

Having won several prizes over the years, the Cannes mainstay will now preside over the jury tasked with awarding the Palme d’Or. He succeeds last year’s president, Juliette Binoche.

“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 artistic director Thierry Frémaux said in a joint statement.

They added that his appointment also reflects Cannes’ longstanding relationship with South Korean cinema, describing the country as “deeply engaged with the questioning of our time.”

Park, whose 12 films have cemented his reputation as one of contemporary cinema’s most distinctive stylists, first drew international attention with “Joint Security Area” in 2001. His festival breakthrough came with “Oldboy,” which premiered in Cannes in 2004 and won the Grand Prize of the festival.

He has returned to the Croisette regularly since. The vampire drama “Thirst” won the Jury Prize in 2009; “The Handmaiden” took the unofficial Queer Palm in 2016, while he was awarded the best director prize for “Decision to Leave” in 2022.

His most recent feature, the dark comedy “No Other Choice,” was shortlisted for this year’s Oscars in the international feature category.

Park made his fashion debut in collaboration with Stefano Pilati in 2014, with a short film titled “A Rose Reborn,” that depicted the creative evolution of the house of Ermenegildo Zegna.

The film starred Daniel Wu and Jack Huston who were dressed in looks from the brand.

He was also honored at the Gucci’s Art+Film Gala at the L.A. Museum of Contemporary Art in 2022. In 2024, Gucci also sponsored the photo exhibition “Two Stories: Lighting the Masters Who Shined Korean Culture” in Seoul, which featured Park’s personal notebooks and memorabilia.

Park’s films are known for their sculptural costuming, as well as attention to texture and lush colors. “The Handmaiden” was particularly noted for its deep jewel tones and fanciful fashion set in a Japanese-occupied Korea reimagined through a Victorian lens full of silks, brocades and sculptural corsets.

Festival organizers described Park as a “virtuoso” whose work is “visceral, subversive and baroque” for his audacious storytelling and moral rigor.

In a statement following the announcement, Park reflected on the communal ritual of cinema. “The theater is dark so that we may see the light of cinema,” he said, calling the shared experience of watching films together “a moving and universal expression of solidarity” in an age of division.

The festival’s full lineup will be unveiled in mid-April, and the festival will run from May 12 to 23.