South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook, who heads the jury for the 2026 edition of the Cannes Film Festival, says he doesn't believe that politics and art are in conflict.
Speaking early in a 50-minute opening press conference of the 78th Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday, the celebrated director of Oldboy, The Handmaiden and Decision to Leave, also drew a distinction between political art and propaganda.
"I don't think politics and art should be divided. It's a strange concept to think they're in conflict with each other. Just because a work of art has a political statement, it should not be considered an enemy of art. At the same time, just because a film is not making a political statement, that film should not be ignored," Park said.
"Even if we are to make a brilliant political statement, if it is not expressed artfully enough it would just be propaganda," he added.
At the film gala, Park said, he is prepared to watch films with the "pure eyes of an audience member". "...without any prejudice or stereotype, just excitement to watch films that will surprise me," he added.
The remarks come months after a major controversy at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival, where jury president Wim Wenders sparked a debate by telling reporters that filmmakers "have to stay out of politics because if we make movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics."
His comments triggered both online and offline backlash as more than 80 industry figures, among them actors Javier Bardem and Tilda Swinton, signed an open letter criticising the Berlinale for what they called its "silence" over the war in Gaza.
At Cannes press meet, jury member Demi Moore was earlier asked whether speaking freely about politics could be detrimental to the movie business. "I would hope not," she said.
"Part of art is about expression, so if we start censoring ourselves then I think we shut down the very core of our creativity, which is where we can discover truth and answers."
Moore, who had received immense praise at Cannes in 2024 for her performance in the body horror hit The Substance, also weighed in on the debate around artificial intelligence in filmmaking.
"AI is here, and so to fight it is to, in a sense, fight something that is a battle that we will lose. So to find ways in which we can work with it, I think, is a more valuable path," she said, while acknowledging that the industry may not yet be doing enough to protect itself from the technology's encroachment.
At the same time, Moore said there were limits to what AI could ever achieve.
"There are beautiful aspects of being able to utilise it, but the truth is, there really isn't anything to fear, because what it can never replace is what true art comes from, which is not the physical. It comes from the soul. It comes from the spirit of each and every one of us," she said.
The 2026 Cannes Film Festival will conclude on May 23.