A family gets placed in foster care in this Palme d'Or-winning drama : NPR
Director Cristian Mungiu's new film 'Fjord' explores the story of a Christian family in Norway whose children are removed by Child Protective Services. The drama examines themes of institutional oppression and cultural clashes.
Why it matters
The film provides a critical look at how state institutions interact with immigrant families and religious minorities.
The gifted Romanian writer-director Cristian Mungiu makes tense realist thrillers that lay bare his country's history of corruption and authoritarianism. In Beyond the Hills , he took aim at intolerance within the Romanian Orthodox Church. In his 2007 masterpiece, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days , he laid bare the cruelties of the communist dictatorship in the late 1980s. That film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and announced Mungiu as a major international talent.
A few months ago, Mungiu won a second Palme d'Or for his new drama, Fjord , which, in many ways, marks something of a departure. It's his first movie shot outside Romania, but even in a fresh setting, his eye for institutional oppression and hypocrisy is as sharp as ever.
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