Cristian Mungiu's 'Fjord' wins Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival

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In a squeaker race for Cannes’ top prize, Romanian director Cristian Mungiu prevailed on Saturday, taking the Palme d’Or for his tense community drama “Fjord.”The movie, a widely admired conversation-starter at the festival, stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as religious parents who come into conflict with the child protection services of their tiny Norwegian town where they have relocated with their family.Movies Not every returning auteur brought their A-game, but we found enough to like, including strong work from Pedro Almodóvar, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Jane Schoenbrun.Mungiu, a previous winner of the Palme for his controversial 2007 abortion drama “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” now joins an exclusive group of 10 filmmakers who have won the Palme twice — an achievement shared by Francis Ford Coppola (1974’s “The Conversation” and 1979’s “Apocalypse Now”) and Ruben Östlund (2017’s “The Square” and 2022’s “Triangle of Sadness”), among others.

No one has ever won a third Palme d’Or.Another record, maybe even more impressive, was set by distributor Neon, which, with “Fjord,” extends its streak of Palme wins to an unprecedented seven in a row.Those previous six Neon winners, many of which eventually claimed Oscars, are “Parasite,” “Titane,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Anora” and last year’s “It Was Just an Accident.” Neon will release “Fjord” in the fall, with an extensive awards campaign to follow.This year’s nine-member main competition jury, led by Korean director Park Chan-wook and studded with notables including “The Substance” star Demi Moore, Stellan Skarsgård and “Hamnet” director Chloé Zhao, seemed intent on spreading the wealth among as many winners as possible.

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