Cedric (@onthecroisette) is the one to know on Twitter for all Cannes news. He announced via Twitter than Korean director Bong Joon-ho has been called up to head up the Camera d’or jury at the 2011 Cannes Film Fest. Info from the Cannes site after the cut.
Director and scriptwriter Bong Joon-ho studied sociology and film before becoming a director. He achieved critical acclaim for his first feature filmBarking Dog (2000). His next, Memories of Murder(2004), which achieved huge public success in Korea (and first prize at the Cognac Police Film Festival), earned him a Best Director Award. The Host, screened in 2006 at the Directors’ Fortnight, finally sealed his international reputation as a director of genre films raised to the level of art.
He was invited to Cannes as part of the Official Selection with Tokyo! (2008), a trilogy on which he worked with Leos Carax and Michel Gondry. In 2009, he presented Mother — an intimate and subtly analytical melodrama about Korean family life —at Un Certain Regard.
As President, Bong Joon-ho follows in the footsteps of Bruno Dumont, Abbas Kiarostami, Pavel Lounguine, Roschdy Zemand Gael Garcia Bernal.
The Caméra d’or is awarded to the best first film presented in the Official Selection (Competition and Un Certain Regard), during Critics’ Week or Directors’ Fortnight.
The prize will be awarded by the President of the Jury at the Closing Ceremony on Sunday 22nd May.