Director Hong Sang-soo is going through divorce proceedings, legal sources said Thursday, amid rumors that he has been having an affair with actress Kim Min-hee after they met while shooting a film together.

Ending a decadeslong marriage, Hong, 56, filed for divorce mediation with his wife at the Seoul Family Court on Nov. 9, according to the sources.

Mediation during divorce is a way of finding solutions to issues such as child custody and spousal support without a formal trial.

According to the Family Litigation Act, all couples wishing to divorce should first go through a mediation process. A divorce trial takes place when an agreement is not reached.

The legal action came several months after a local media outlet filed a report saying that the director and the actress met when Kim was playing the lead role in "Right Now, Wrong Then." Hong directed the film which subsequently won the top prize at Locarno International Film Festival last year. The two have not issued any statement responding to the report.

Hong was married to his wife who he met in the United States while studying film in the 1980s. The couple is known to have moved to South Korea in 1992 and have a college-aged daughter. (Yonhap)