Bong Joon-ho has won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival for his black comic thriller Parasite.
The South Korean director is best known for previous films Okja and Snowpiercer, and earned rave reviews for his new film, which is about a poor family who insinuate themselves as servants into a much richer one.
Bong is the first Korean director to have won the top award at Cannes, after last appearing in competition with Okja in 2017. He is the second Asian winner in successive years, after Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda triumphed in 2018 with Shoplifters.
Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood left empty-handed despite widespread critical acclaim, as did another heavyweight director Ken Loach, whose gig-economy drama Sorry We Missed You had made a major impact at the beginning of the festival.
