South Korea’s Bong Joon-ho wins Cannes film festival top prize with ‘Parasite’

Cannes (France) (AFP) – South Korean director Bong Joon-ho won the Palme d’Or top prize at Cannes film festival Saturday with “Parasite”, a bravura satirical morality tale about the widening gap between rich and poor in his homeland.

Bong, 49, is the first Korean to ever win the top award at the world’s biggest film festival.

He called his longtime leading actor, Song Kang-ho, whom he described as his “alter-ego” onto the stage to receive the award with him. “I was a little boy who was crazy about cinema since I was 12 years old,” he said.