Korean Oscar-winning director Bong Joon Ho fondly recalled his film student days as took up the baton of jury president at the 22nd Marrakech Film Festival on Friday.
He was joined onstage at the opening-night ceremony by jury members Celine Song, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jenna Ortega, Karim Aïnouz, Hakim Belabbes, Julia Ducournau and Payman Maadi.
Over the course of the next eight days, they will judge 14 first and second features in the running for the festival’s Golden Star Award.
Bong cast his mind back to his own filmmaker beginnings at the opening ceremony.
“Twenty-two years. What were you doing when you were 22 years old? Or what are you planning to do when you turn 22?” he said.
“At 22, I was greedily devouring movies as a student of cinema. I watched three, four films a day. I wanted to make them myself. Why did they put the camera there? Why is the actor facing that direction? Why did they cut away from that scene at that moment?”
“Those were the questions that consumed me at 22. Looking back, my 22-year-old self was brimming with energy and passion for cinema. I feel that Marrakech is also buzzing with a special energy as it enters its 22nd year.”
He noted the festival’s strong Korean connections.
Korea has won the main competition twice, with Park Jung-bum’s The Journals of Musan clinching the Golden Star in 2010, followed by Lee Su-jin’s Han Gong-ju in 2013, which received the prize from a jury presided over by Martin Scorsese.
Bong is the festival’s first Asian jury president.
Speaking on the red carpet, festival director Mélita Toscan du Plantier said she had been courting the director for the jury president role for years.
“He is always busy, but he said if you ask one year ahead, I will commit. I was like ‘really?’ and he is here. That’s very rare. People often, say they’ll come, and then they’re busy.”
Toscan du Plantier suggested her longtime friend Scorsese, regular guest and past Bong collaborator Tilda Swinton (Okja and Snowpiercer), and Lee Su-jin had also pressed upon him to attend.
Friday’s opening ceremony also saw veteran Egyptian actor Hussein Fahmi feted with a career achievement award.
Egyptian star Yousra read out a tribute to the actor celebrating the diversity of his roles and support for cinema across his 50-year career.
The Marrakech Film Festival runs November 28-December 6.