Na Hong-jin's 'Hope' Earns Korea Its First Cannes Competition Slot in 4 Years

Director Na Hong-jin's long-awaited new film Hope has been selected for the Main Competition at the 79th Cannes International Film Festival, ending a four-year absence for Korean cinema from the prestigious category. The festival's executive committee announced the official lineup on April 9 (local time), with the festival set to run from May 12 to 23.

The last time a Korean film competed at Cannes was 2022, when Park Chan-wook's Decision to Leave and Hirokazu Kore-eda's Broker, produced by a Korean company, both made the competition slate. Last year, not a single Korean feature film was invited to any official or unofficial section of the festival, making the drought feel especially sharp. Hope's competition invitation now puts Korean cinema back in contention for the Palme d'Or.

Set in a port village inside the Demilitarized Zone, Hope follows the arrival of an unidentified entity and the chaos that ensues. The cast is one of the most striking assembled for a Korean production: Hwang Jung-min, Jo In-sung, and Jung Ho-yeon headline alongside Hollywood veterans Michael Fassbender and Alicia Vikander. The combination of Na's decade-long absence from features, a deliberately secretive story, and that international ensemble has made Hope one of the most anticipated Korean films in recent memory.

For Na Hong-jin personally, the selection is a career milestone. He last walked the Cannes red carpet in 2016 when The Wailing was invited as a non-competition screening, a full ten years ago. More strikingly, Hope now completes an unusual record: every feature he has ever directed has been invited to Cannes. His debut The Chaser screened in the Midnight section in 2008; The Yellow Sea went to Un Certain Regard in 2011; The Wailing was a non-competition selection in 2016. The Main Competition is the one section that had eluded him, until now.

Also heading to Cannes is director Yeon Sang-ho's new film Gunche, selected for the non-competition Midnight Screenings section. The film centers on a mysterious virus that locks down a building while the infected evolve in unpredictable ways. Unlike the zombies in Yeon's earlier hits Train to Busan (2016) and Peninsula (2020), the creatures in Gunche are said to share a collective intelligence, learning and effectively "updating" like software.

Jeon Ji-hyun stars as Kwon Se-jeong, a biotechnology professor who becomes the leader of a survivor group, marking her return to the big screen after 11 years. Koo Kyo-hwan, Ji Chang-wook, Ko Soo, and Shin Hyun-been round out the cast. Yeon previously brought The King of Pigs to the Directors' Fortnight in 2012 and Train to Busan to Midnight Screenings in 2016.

Adding another layer of significance to this year's festival: director Park Chan-wook will serve as jury president of the Main Competition, the first Korean filmmaker ever to hold that role.