Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner, now Romania’s pick for the Oscars, arrives in North America on October 9. Information about movie theaters and available tickets can be found HERE
A story that moved Romanian communities around the world a decade ago now reaches American screens. Fjord, the new film from Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, opens in U.S. theaters today through Neon.
Mungiu won his second Palme d’Or at Cannes this year, 19 years after 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Fjord is his first English-language feature, with Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve in the leading roles. Romania has unanimously selected it as its submission for the 2027 Academy Awards in the Best International Feature category. Several U.S. publications already count it among the awards-season contenders, including in categories beyond international film.
The film follows a Romanian-Norwegian couple who move to a remote village in Norway and come under scrutiny from child welfare authorities over how they raise their children. It is inspired by the real case of the Bodnariu family. In November 2015, Norway’s child protection service, Barnevernet, removed abusively the couple’s five children, the youngest only a few months old. The case drew worldwide attention and set off one of the largest mobilizations in the history of the Romanians.
Demonstrations took place in dozens of cities across Romania and abroad, from Oslo, London, Sydney, Melbourne and Brussels to Washington, D.C., Atlanta, San Francisco and Chicago. Public pressure from around the world was a decisive factor in the family’s reunification, and Norway’s child welfare practices faced years of international criticism.
Romanian-Americans were an important part of that movement. Rallies in major U.S. cities, together with community media such as Tribuna.US, carried the family’s story well beyond the Romanian-speaking world. Many who marched in 2015 can now watch that story on the big screen.
Mungiu says he researched the subject extensively, speaking with journalists and NGOs and traveling to Norway, and that he saw a pattern across similar cases. For him, the film is about what happens when personal values collide with those of the society around you, and where the state’s authority over a family should end. Critics and the Cannes jury have praised it as a nuanced exploration of that conflict rather than a one-sided verdict.
Mungiu has said the best way for audiences to support the film is simply to go see it in theaters. For Romanian-Americans, that may mean watching on screen a story they once helped bring to the world’s attention.
Information about movie theaters and available tickets can be found HERE
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