Cristian Mungiu Wins Palme d’Or for Fjord at Cannes 79

Cristian Mungiu’s fjord won the Palme d’Or at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, giving the Romanian director a second top prize after his 2007 victory. The win also extends a rare streak for Neon, which picked up the film for domestic release ahead of the festival.

Mungiu and Reinsve

Fjord stars Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan as Romanian religious parents who relocate to a small Norwegian village and then find themselves accused of child abuse. It is Mungiu’s English-language debut, which makes the Palme result a sharper commercial and artistic marker than a routine festival prize.

Neon’s Palme streak

Neon has now picked the Palme winner seven years running, a run that turns a festival selection into a distribution pattern worth watching. For a company buying prestige titles before the awards are announced, that kind of consistency is a rare edge in a market where Cannes still helps set the year’s conversation.

Other Cannes winners

Andreï Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur took the runner-up Grand Prix, while best directing honors were shared by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi for La Bola Negra and Paweł Pawlikowski for Fatherland. Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne shared best actor for Lukas Dhont’s Coward, and Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto shared best actress for Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden.

Emmanuel Marre won best screenplay for A Man of His Time, and Valeska Grisebach took the Jury Prize for The Dreamed Adventure. Barbra Streisand also received an honorary Palme d’Or at the ceremony, with Isabelle Huppert praising her “for her support for the LGBTQ+ community, and religious and ethnic minorities.”