{"id":205825,"date":"2025-11-29T02:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T02:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/205825\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T02:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T02:59:09","slug":"bong-joon-ho-recalls-passion-of-film-school-days-as-marrakech-opens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/205825\/","title":{"rendered":"Bong Joon Ho Recalls Passion Of Film School Days As Marrakech Opens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tKorean Oscar-winning director Bong Joon Ho<\/a> fondly recalled his film student days as took up the baton of jury president at the 22nd Marrakech Film Festival<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe was joined onstage at the opening-night ceremony<\/a> by jury members Celine Song, Anya Taylor-Joy<\/a>, Jenna Ortega<\/a>, Karim A\u00efnouz, Hakim Belabbes, Julia Ducournau and Payman Maadi.<\/p>\n

\n\tOver the course of the next eight days, they will judge 14 first and second features in the running for the festival\u2019s Golden Star Award.<\/p>\n

\n\tBong cast his mind back to his own filmmaker beginnings at the opening ceremony.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTwenty-two years. What were you doing when you were 22 years old? Or what are you planning to do when you turn 22?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThose 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe noted the festival\u2019s strong Korean connections. <\/p>\n

\n\tKorea has won the main competition twice, with Park Jung-bum\u2019s The Journals of Musan clinching the Golden Star in 2010, followed by Lee Su-jin\u2019s Han Gong-ju in 2013, which received the prize from a jury presided over by Martin Scorsese.<\/p>\n

\n\tBong is the festival\u2019s first Asian jury president.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking on the red carpet, festival director M\u00e9lita Toscan du Plantier\u00a0said she had been courting the director for the jury president role for years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe is always busy, but he said if you ask one year ahead, I will commit. I was like \u2018really?\u2019 and he is here. That\u2019s very rare. People often, say they\u2019ll come, and then they\u2019re busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tToscan 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tFriday\u2019s opening ceremony also saw veteran Egyptian actor Hussein Fahmi feted with a career achievement award.<\/p>\n

\n\tEgyptian star Yousra read out a tribute to the actor celebrating the diversity of his roles and support for cinema\u00a0across his 50-year career.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Marrakech Film Festival runs November 28-December 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Korean Oscar-winning director Bong Joon Ho fondly recalled his film student days as took up the baton of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[13627,88622,434,18,117,19,17,2870,113026],"class_list":{"0":"post-205825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-anya-taylor-joy","9":"tag-bong-joon-ho","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-jenna-ortega","16":"tag-marrakech-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115630752733137473","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}