The japanese director will be given Honorary Award at the 25th edition of the Festival to be held in Madrid from 1 to 16 September 2026.
Hirokazu Kore-eda (born 6 June 1962) is a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He began his career in television and has since directed more than a dozen feature films, including Nobody Knows (2004) and Still Walking (2008).
He won the Jury Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for Like Father, Like Son and the Palme d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for Shoplifters.
Kore-eda’s father was born in Taiwan. Kore-eda’s paternal grandparents could not marry under Japanese law at the time as they had the same last name, so they had eloped to Taiwan, then under Japanese colonial rule, where they could marry. Kore-eda has cited this as a reason for his affinity toward Taiwan.
Kore-eda’s father was conscripted into the Japanese military during World War II and detained in Siberia for three years after the end of the war.
Hirokazu Kore-eda was born on 6 June 1962 in Nerima, Tokyo, Japan. He is the youngest of three children. From an early age, Kore-eda watched movies with his mother. He said through an interpreter, “My mother loved films! She adored Ingrid Bergman, Joan Fontaine, Vivien Leigh! We couldn’t afford to go together to the cinema, but she was always watching their movies on TV. She stopped all family business or discussions to watch these movies. We would watch together. So I adored film—like her.”
Before becoming a director, Kore-eda worked as an assistant director on television documentaries. He directed his first television documentary, Lessons from a Calf, in 1991. He directed several other documentary films thereafter.
Kore-eda’s 1994 documentary August without Him depicts his friendship with AIDS sufferer Hirata Yutaka. It follows Kore-eda as he meets Yutaka and films his life between 1992 and 1994. The first Japanese to admit he contracted the disease via homosexual contact, Yutaka speaks openly about his condition. The film ends with his condition having deteriorated. Yutaka died of AIDS complications on May 29, 1994.
At the 1995 Venice Film Festival, Kore-eda’s first fiction feature film, Maborosi, won a Golden Osella for Best Cinematography. At the first Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema in 1999, he won awards for Best Film and Best Screenplay for his film After Life.
In 2005, Kore-eda won the Blue Ribbon Awards for Best Film and Best Director for his film Nobody Knows. His 2008 film Still Walking also earned accolades, including Best Director at the 2009 Asian Film Awards and the Golden Ástor for Best Film at the 2008 Mar del Plata International Film Festival.
Kore-eda’s 2013 film Like Father, Like Son premiered and was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. It did not win, but it won the Jury Prize and a commendation from the Ecumenical Jury. In October 2013, the film won the Rogers People’s Choice Award at the 2013 Vancouver International Film Festival.
Kore-eda’s 2015 film Our Little Sister was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. His 2016 film After the Storm debuted to critical acclaim at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard category. For his work on it, Kore-eda won Best Director at the Yokohama Film Festival. He won Best Film and Best Director Japan Academy Prizes for his 2017 film The Third Murder, which also screened in the main competition of the 74th Venice International Film Festival.
In 2018, his film Shoplifters, about a young girl welcomed in by a family of shoplifters, premiered and won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
In 2018, he won the Donostia Award for his lifetime achievement at San Sebastián International Film Festival.
In 2019, Kore-eda directed The Truth, starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke. It is his first film shot in Europe and not in Japanese.
In 2021, Kore-eda directed Broker. The film was shot in South Korea, featuring a predominantly South Korean cast and crew. It was first released on 8 June 2022. The film was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022 and won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. In January 2022, it was announced that Kore-eda would be working with a team of directors including Megumi Tsuno, Hiroshi Okuyama, and Takuma Sato on a nine-episode series, The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House, adapted from the manga Kiyo in Kyoto.
In November 2022, Kore-eda disclosed that he had completed shooting his next Japanese film, Monster. With post-production underway, Monster was scheduled for release in Japan on 2 June 2023. This release date positioned the film for a potential world premiere in May at Cannes. It won the Queer Palm and the Best Screenplay Award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
in 2025, Netflix released Kore-eda’s series Asura. It is based on Kuniko Mukōda’s novel of the same name.
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