Romanian Director Cristian Mungiu Wins His Second Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival for ‘Fjord’

Cristian Mungiu‘s complex moral drama “Fjord,” starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, has won the Palme d’Or for best film at the Cannes Film Festival, making the Romanian writer-director the tenth filmmaker to win the coveted award twice — 19 years after his first victory for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.” The film, about a Romanian family of Evangelical Christians mired in a child abuse case when they run afoul of the Norwegian social system, was among the more hotly debated titles in the Competition, with critics split on its merits and its sociopolitical allegiances — though evidently that very discussability united a jury headed by South Korean auteur Park Chan-wook.

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Mungiu was typically self-effacing as he accepted the Palme. “All awards are contextual,” he said. “The fact that you gave me this award, it’s wonderful for us and we feel very happy, but we need to wait 10, 20 years to watch these films again, and maybe then we’ll understand which of them were really good, and managed to survive the test of time.”

This critic was among the admirers of the film (Mungiu’s first to be set and shot entirely outside his home country), describing it as a “superb new drama of systemic order and individual disarray [that] feels immediately of a piece with his searching, bristling oeuvre, despite its crisp new setting,” and praising Stan’s and Reinsve’s “measured, tightly clenched performances.” The win also represents a major coup for “Fjord’s” U.S. distributor Neon, which has now extended its Palme-winning streak to seven years running, beginning with eventual Oscar winner “Parasite” in 2019, and will certainly buoy their future awards hopes for Mungiu’s film.

The win wasn’t entirely expected: Many thought exiled Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, now based in France, would triumph for his icy anti-Putin neo-noir “Minotaur,” his first film in nine years, and a major comeback following a near-fatal battle with COVID a few years ago. In the end, Zvyagintsev had to be content with the Grand Prix, the fest’s second most prestigious award, but prospects look strong for the Mubi-backed title — a contemporary reworking of Claude Chabrol’s erotic thriller “The Unfaithful Wife,” set in Russia near the star of Putin’s war on Ukraine, but shot entirely in Latvia by political necessity.

In a heavily European-dominated slate of winners, the Best Director prize was shared by two oppositely styled historical visions: “Fatherland,” Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski’s meticulous evocation of post-war Germany, and “The Black Ball,” Spanish duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s sprawling, stylized, era-spanning ode to queer lives and loves lost to fascism, written through the prism of Federico Garcia Lorca’s poetry.

The tie provided the most amusing moment of the awards ceremony, with the confused shuffle of the three directors on stage prompting Pawlikowski to quip, “This is a piece of disastrous mise-en-scène!” But it also served up the two most stirring speeches of the night, with the Spanish filmmakers, known locally as Los Javis, overcome with emotion as they honored their queer antecedents: “The only way we can honor the suffering, the silence, the death of the LGBTQ people that came before us, is making sure that the next generation has the same freedom or more.”

Pawlikowski, meanwhile, spoke precisely and passionately about the need for a nuanced understanding of political cinema: “We live and breath politics, and cinema should reflect that, but not on terms dictated by politicians and activists: It takes courage to resist dictators and bullies, but it also takes courage to resist noise, algorithms, peer pressure.”

Los Javis, meanwhile, weren’t the only duo honored on a night where collaborative artistry was especially celebrated. Both acting awards went to pairs of co-stars, with Frenchwoman Virginie Efira and Japanese star Tao Okamoto (the only non-European individual to take a prize from the jury, for a culture-melding French-Japanese production) sharing the Best Actress award for their exquisitely calibrated, conversational dual turn in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s critical darling “All of a Sudden,” as a care home manager and experimental theater director who find a deep and unexpected bond through their respective lines of work.

Meanwhile, the two young stars of Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s First World War drama “Coward” — Valentin Campagne and newcomer Emmanuel Macchia — were stunned to jointly win Best Actor for their achingly sensitive portrayals of soldiers-turned-lovers on the Western Front. Their giddy, ebullient speech, as Campagne literally leaped into his co-star’s arms, was a joyful high in the ceremony.

German director Valeska Grisebach may have been the sole Jury Prize winner for her ambitiously experimental, documentary-influenced crime drama “The Dreamed Adventure,” but she didn’t see herself that way, calling her leading lady Yana Radeva onto stage as her most invaluable collaborator. Frenchman Emmanuel Marre, meanwhile, took Best Screenplay for another of the Competition’s most strikingly unconventional works, the fractured French Resistance drama “A Man of His Time.”

In something of a surprise, the Camera d’Or for best first feature across all sections of the festival went to Rwandan filmmaker Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo for her heartfelt debut “Ben’Imana” — a happy turnaround after the film was entirely blanked by the Un Certain Regard jury last night. It was a welcome triumph for African cinema on such a Eurocentric night.

Yet in a year where American films were conspicious by their general absence — the two U.S. Competition titles, James Gray’s “Paper Tiger” and Ira Sachs’ “The Man I Love,” both left empty-handed — the awards did encapsulate the major theme of this year’s festival: of film as a global, exploratory medium, with “Fjord,” “Minotaur,” “The Dreamed Adventure,” “Fatherland” and “All of a Sudden” all either addressing themes of displacement on screen, or made by filmmakers forging connections with new countries and national cinemas.

COMPETITION

Palme d’Or: “Fjord,’ Cristian Mungiu

Grand Prix: “Minotaur,” Andrey Zvyagintsev

Jury Prize: “The Dreamed Adventure,” Valeska Grisebach

Best Director: (TIE) Javier Calva and Javier Ambrossi, “The Black Ball”; Pawel Pawlikowski, “Fatherland”

Best Actress: Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto, “All of a Sudden”

Best Actor: Valentin Campagne and Emmanuel Macchia, “Coward”

Best Screenplay: Emmanuel Marre, “A Man of His Time”

OTHER PRIZES

Camera d’Or: “Ben’Imana,” Marie Clémentine Dusabejambo

Short Film Palme d’Or: “For the Opponents,” Federico Luis

Prior to tonight’s ceremony, the festival has also seen the following awards announced:

HONORARY PALMES D’OR: Peter Jackson; Barbra Streisand; John Travolta

UN CERTAIN REGARD

Un Certain Regard Award: “Everytime,” Sandra Wollner

Jury Prize: “Elephants in the Fog” Abinash Bikram Shah

Special Jury Prize: “Iron Boy,” Louis Clichy

Best Actress: Daniela Marín Navarro, Marina de Tavira and Mariangel Villegas, “Forever Your Maternal Animal”

Best Actor: Bradley Fiomona Dembeasset, “Congo Boy”

DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT

Europa Cinemas Label Award for Best European Film: “Too Many Beasts,” Sarah Arnold

SACD Prize for Best French Film: “Shana,” Shana Pinell

Audience Choice Award: “I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning,” Clio Barnard

Carrosse d’Or: Claire Denis

CRITICS’ WEEK

Grand Prize: “La Gradiva,” Marine Atlan

GAN Foundation Award for Distribution: “A Girl Unknown,” Zou Jing (Pyramide Distribution)

Rising Star Award: Aina Clotet, “Alive”

SACD Prize: Blerta Basholli and Nicole Borgeat, “Dua”

Canal+ Short Film Award: “Vaterland or a Bule Named Yanto,” Berthold Wahjudi

Discovery Prize for Short Film: “Skinny Boots,” Romain F. Dubois

IMMERSIVE COMPETITION

Best Immersive Work Award: “Katábasis,” Ugo Arsac

Special Mention: “The Black Mirror Experience,” David Bardos and Damià Ferràndiz

CINÉFONDATION AWARDS

First Prize: “Laser-Cat,” by” Lucas Acher (NYC, United States)

Second Prize: “Silent Voices,” Nadine Misong Jin (Columbia University, United States)

Third Prize: (TIE) “Never Enough,” Julius Lagoutte Larsen (La Fémis, France); “Growing Stones, Flying Papers,” Roozbeh Gezerseh and Soraya Shamsi (Konrad Wolf Film University of Babelsberg, Germany)

OTHER AWARDS

L’Oeil d’Or Documentary Prize: “Rehearsals for a Revolution,” Pegah Ahangarani

Golden Eye Special Jury Prize: “Tin Castle,” Alexander Murphy

Queer Palm: “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” Jane Schoenbrun

Queer Palm Discovery Prize: “Flesh and Fuel,” Pierre Le Gall

Queer Palm for Short Film: “Silent Voice,” Nadine Misong Jin

FIPRESCI Award (Competition): “Fjord,” Cristian Mungiu

FIPRESCI Award (Un Certain Regard): “Ben’Imana,” Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo

FIPRESCI Award (Parallel Sections): “A Girl Unknown,” Jing Zou

Ecumenical Jury Award: “Fjord,” Cristian Mungiu

Cannes Soundtrack Award: Evgueni and Sacha Galperine, “Minotaur”

François Chalais Prize: “Fjord,” Cristian Mungiu

Citizenship Prize: “Fjord,” Cristian Mungiu

AFCAE Art House Cinema Award: “A Man of His Time,” Emmanuel Marre

Prix du Cinéma Positif: “Coward,” Lukas Dhont

Palm Dog: Yuri, “La Perra”

Palm Dog Special Mention: Lola, “I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning”

Trophée Chopard for Female Revelation of the Year: Odessa A’zion

Trophée Chopard for Male Revelation of the Year: Connor Swindells