Cannes Jury President Park Chan-wook Teases: ‘I Didn’t Want to Award the Palme d’Or to Any of the Films’

Cannes' jury head, Park Chan-wook — someone who's often been a favorite at Cannes but has never won the Palme d'Or — made some funny remarks and promoted his new movie during the closing press conference of the 79th Cannes Film Festival.

Park joked about having a hard time deciding which movie should win the top prize this year.

He said, "Honestly, I didn't want to give the Palme d'Or to any of the films because I've never won it myself.

 But I had no choice," he said in a flat, serious tone.

Even though he made jokes, the jury still made a decision.

 The Palme d'Or went to Cristian Mungiu's moral drama "Fjord," starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve. This makes Mungiu the tenth filmmaker to win the award twice — 19 years after his first win for "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days."

The highlight of the press conference was Park talking about the jury's decision not to choose favorites in two categories.

 They gave shared honors for acting to Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto in Ryusuke Hamaguchi's "All of a Sudden," and for directing to Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski with "Fatherland," and Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi with "The Black Ball." Park didn't apologize for this decision.

He said, "If you've seen the two films that won the acting award, I'm sure you'd agree with our choices."

 On the tie for directing, he added, "Both filmmakers did an amazing job, and we just couldn't decide which one was better."

The jury included Demi Moore, Ruth Negga, Laura Wandel, Chloé Zhao, Diego Céspedes, Isaach De Bankolé, Paul Laverty, and Stellan Skarsgård.

The two American films in the competition, James Gray's "Paper Tiger" and Ira Sachs' "The Man I Love," didn't win anything in a year that was especially kind to European movies.

Park is a well-known director from South Korea who made "Job Security Area" in 2000 and "Oldboy" in 2003.

 In recent years, he has become more famous in Hollywood with projects like the HBO series "The Sympathizer," starring Robert Downey Jr., and the 2025 drama "No Other Choice," which had a strong showing at arthouse theaters in the US through distributor Neon.

Park has been part of Cannes before.

 His film "The Handmaiden" was in competition in 2016, and he also served as a jury member at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.