Is Palme D’Or winner Christian Mungiu concerned that Fjord will incite outrage, even violence, from extremist political sides?
In its deconstruction of society and the prejudice that immigrants face, Fjord per critics could conceivably rub both liberals and conservatives the wrong way. Based on the experiences of a real-life Romanian family, Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve play Mihai and Lisbet Gheorghiu — immigrant parents of five children who move from Romania to Lisbet’s small Norwegian hometown. When a neighboring family spots bruises on the couple’s daughter, the Gheorghui family are torn apart by a child services investigation.
Mungiu emphasized at the awards press conference that “we need to encourage this attitude, where we don’t rush to judge the other.”
“We all use lots of stereotypes. We include people in categories,” however, the Romanian filmmaker encouraged during the press conference we just need to dialogue.
“You’ll eventually learn that (the other side) they’re not different from you,” he said.
“We all have survival instincts,” said the director, “we see others as enemies.”
“But we claim to be civilized people and civilization means this attempt to lower down your instincts and be a little bit more open.”
“We need to respect other people. People need to find their own answers for the questions that face humanity.”
He summed up, “We need to leave them (the children) with a less violent society than the one we have now.”
Fjord was Mungiu’s second Palme D’Or win after 2007’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. He called Cannes‘ top prize “humbling.” Quite often filmmakers go years without winning at Cannes. “Awards are often a result of context or circumstance,” said Mungiu. “It’s important to focus on the film and not the prize.”
That said, he noted that Fjord in the last two days won five awards — and means something.
“The film speaks to different levels of society.”
