The director of Fjord takes the ‘risky position’ of moderator
Director Cristian Mungiu discusses his new film 'Fjord', which explores the moral complexities of a religious family moving to Norway. The interview touches on themes of minority status, societal tolerance, and the influence of his background in journalism.
Why it matters
The film addresses contemporary social tensions regarding religious minorities and the challenges of maintaining individual values in a secular society.
Cristian Mungiu’s sixth feature, Fjord, concerns a family on trial. They seem like good people, God-fearing. They’ve just moved from Romania to a small hamlet nestled in the fjords of rural Norway. There is Mamma (Renate Reinsve), Tata (a bald and bespectacled Sebastian Stan), and their passel of children. They are an openly religious and proselytizing family. The parents, unfashionably, believe in punitive consequences to actions. They would never be accused of gentle parenting. All ought to be well, only Norway in 2026 is extravagantly suspicious of the devout — their famous tolerance reserved for the secular.
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