Fjord

Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve star as parents at odds with the system in this year's Palme d'Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival.

There are some new outsiders in town. The Gheorghiu family has recently moved from Romania to Norway, resettling in a secluded fjord. For Lisbet (Renate Reinsve), who was raised in Norway, the move is a homecoming, but for her Romanian husband Mihai (Sebastian Stan) and their five children, it is a new start.

Conservative and devoutly Christian, the Gheorghius are welcomed into the township by their small church community, but their outmoded attitudes to parenting are viewed warily by the broader townsfolk. When their eldest daughter Elia arrives at school with suspicious bruises, deep concerns arise.

Curator's note
Whether we admit it or not, I think it’s fair to say that we all bring a political bias to cinema – not just the makers, but also the viewers. There’s a certain comfort in seeing our worldview reinforced in the cinema we watch. Fjord challenges this, playing with our biases, and steering us in directions we might not have leaned into intuitively.

Fjord premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival this year, where it received the coveted Palme d’Or: Cristian Mungiu’s second following 2007’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. It’s masterful in its manipulations, and for this alone it's certainly no surprise that it received the prize.