The black comedy film by Bong Joon Ho has become the first Korean film ever nominated for the Best Picture, and the sixth foreign language film ever to get both Best Picture and International Film nods.

• Jan 14, 2020

AceShowbiz - Director Bong Joon Ho is in shock after "Parasite" became the first Korean film ever nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.

The filmmaker also earned nods for Best Director, International Film, and Original Screenplay, along with Jin Won Han, with the acclaimed production also being recognised for Editing and Production Design.

"Parasite" is only the sixth foreign language movie ever to receive Academy Award nominations for both Best Picture and International Film, and the 11th foreign language film nominated for Best Picture.

"I feel it's like Inception," he tells Deadline referring to the film which centres on dreams, "where soon I'm going to wake up and realise this was all a dream, I'm still in the middle of 'Parasite' and all the equipment is malfunctioning. I see the catering truck on fire and I'm wailing. But right now, everything is great and I'm so happy."

He adds, "When I was creating this film, I didn't intend or aim for any of these things to happen. This is very rare for Asia and Korea for a movie to be nominated for categories like Best Picture and Best Director. We never expected any of this and I think all of this is thanks to the pure passion that all our great actors and crew members had in their pursuit to create a high-quality film and take on new challenges. I think the Academy members really recognised that as fellow filmmakers."

Bong Joon Ho hopes the recognition will encourage audiences to be more open minded and watch more films made outside of their own countries and cultures.

"I think this was the case not only for the U.S. but for most countries including Korea, where audiences mainly watch domestic films or Hollywood blockbusters," he adds. "It wasn't very common for diverse films to cross continents and access different audiences. But I think audiences are opening up to these films and the fact that this Korean-language film was nominated for Oscars, and was really embraced by U.S. audiences reflects that change of attitude. It's sort of like a proof for how audiences are opening up."