'Broker' wins Ecumenical Jury Award for Best Film at Cannes

WASHINGTON: At the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Hirokazu Koreeda's Broker, a Korean-language drama about an abandoned child, illegal baby brokers, and makeshift families, won the Ecumenical jury award for best film.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Koreeda, who won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2018 for Shoplifters, makes his first foray into Korean cinema with Broker, starring Parasite star Song Kang-ho as the "broker," a lovable rogue who pinches an infant left by a desperate mother at a Busan Family Church's "baby box" and tries to find her an alternative family.

They initially try to sell the infant with the help of another broker, Gang Dong-won. When the child's mother, played by Lee Ji-Eun, returns, the plot takes a turn for the worse.

In a statement, the Ecumenical jury remarked, "The film depicts, in an intimate way, how the family may be family without biological links." "Despite the many varied traumatic origins, lives and souls are being preserved by a secure environment formed by the three adults and an orphan boy around the infant."

The Ecumenical jury, which includes members of the Christian cinema groups Interfilm (Protestant) and Signis (Catholic), chooses the best film from the Cannes competition that "best touches the spiritual component of our existence", as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

The jury has a great track record of selecting films that go on to win top honours at the festival's main event, having been awarded prizes in Cannes since 1974.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car, the Ecumenical jury winner last year, won the best script at Cannes and went on to win an Oscar for best international film.

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