Cristian Mungiu claimed his second Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday night, as “Fjord” brought Neon its seventh consecutive top prize from the Croisette.
The win extends a run for the U.S. distributor that has reshaped the modern Cannes record books. Neon arrived at the 79th edition with pre-festival deals already in place on six competition titles – “All of a Sudden,” “Fjord,” “Hope,” “Paper Tiger,” “Sheep in the Box” and “The Unknown” – giving it six chances at continuing a streak that began with Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” in 2019 and also took in Julia Ducournau’s “Titane,” Ruben Östlund’s “Triangle of Sadness,” Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” Sean Baker’s “Anora” and Jafar Panahi’s “It Was Just an Accident.”
“Fjord” represents a notable departure for Mungiu, his first film shot in English and Norwegian rather than his native Romanian. The director’s debut Palme came in 2007 for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” which announced him as a defining voice of the Romanian New Wave.
“Many a great world cinema auteur has come unstuck when venturing farther afield, but in Mungiu’s case, the journey makes perfect sense: So much of his work has been preoccupied with globalization, migration and cultural divides between eastern and western Europe that ‘Fjord’ feels immediately of a piece with his searching, bristling oeuvre, despite its crisp new setting,” wrote Guy Lodge, reviewing the film for Variety.
