Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai will head the judging panel at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

The director of In the Mood for Love and 2046 will be the first Chinese chairman of the panel in the event's history, organisers said today. Wong won the Cannes' award for Best Director in 1997 for the film Happy Together.

He will have trouble deciding on a winner of the festival, however. "Each city has its own language," he commented in a statement. "In Cannes, it is the language of dreams. Yet it is difficult to judge a dream, much less compare it to another one."

This year's event will be the 59th Cannes Film Festival and is set to take place over May 17-28.