Park Chan-wook to lead Cannes jury as festival opens in spotlight

Park Chan-wook will head the Cannes jury as the 79th Festival de Cannes opens with a clear industry message, that the French Riviera remains one of cinema’s most influential launch pads even as Hollywood studios sit mostly on the sidelines. Cannes will run from May 12 to May 23, with the jury set to award the Palme d’Or on Saturday, May 23, and the closing ceremony broadcast live in France by France Télévisions and internationally by Brut.

The appointment of Park, a first for Korean cinema, gives this year’s jury an especially international profile at a moment when Cannes is again trying to define the year’s creative agenda. Peter Jackson will be celebrated at the opening ceremony on Tuesday, May 12, with an Honorary Palme d’Or, while Barbra Streisand will receive her Honorary Palme d’Or during the awards ceremony at the end of the festival. Those honors put three major global names at the center of Cannes before a single competition film screens, reinforcing the festival’s role as both prestige showcase and market signal.

The competition slate is built to draw buyers, critics and awards watchers alike. Cannes’s official selection lists 22 films in Competition, and among the titles drawing attention are Hope, a sci-fi thriller from Na Hong-jin; Paper Tiger, James Gray’s Queens drama about two brothers tied to a Russian mafia scheme; and Fjord, Cristian Mungiu’s latest film about a Romanian-Norwegian couple settling in a fjordside village. Cannes says Hope is set in a village under forest-fire conditions, where police and villagers confront an unidentified threat after communications are cut. Paper Tiger is set in Queens in 1986, and Fjord follows a couple whose children become close with their neighbors before tensions emerge.

That range, from genre thriller to New York crime drama to European prestige film, is part of why Cannes still matters far beyond the Croisette. The festival unveiled its official selection on April 9 and added titles on April 22, building a program that spans Competition, Un Certain Regard, Out of Competition, Midnight Screenings, Cannes Première, Special Screenings, Cannes Classics and Cinéma de la Plage. Even with U.S. studio presence reduced, the lineup keeps the balance tilted toward internationally driven auteurs and multinational casts, the kind of films that can travel from premiere buzz to distribution deals and, later in the year, awards-season momentum.

Cannes is also leaning on its own recent history to explain its continuing clout. The festival has pointed to Parasite, whose 2019 Palme d’Or was followed by Academy Awards triumphs, as proof that a Cannes launch can still accelerate a film far beyond its premiere. In a year when the industry is watching how theatrical releases, streamer strategies and global co-productions are evolving, Cannes opens with the familiar message that the next season’s conversation still begins on the Riviera.