Bong Joon-ho
Bong Joon-ho (born 1969) is a South Korean filmmaker whose genre-blurring films and acute attention to class made him the first director ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture with a non-English-language film. Born in Daegu, he studied sociology at Yonsei University while drawing political cartoons for the campus newspaper, then trained at the Korean Academy of Film Arts. His debut Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) found a cult audience; Memories of Murder (2003) — based on the real Hwaseong serial killings — established him as a major voice. He has worked across genres in The Host (2006), Mother (2009), Snowpiercer (2013), Okja (2017), and Parasite (2019), which won the Palme d'Or and then Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature — an unprecedented sweep.