Romanian Filmmakers in Cannes
Cristian Mungiu and Radu Jude are included in this year’s competitions at the Cannes Film Festival, the most important of its kind in the world
Roxana Vasile, 16.04.2026, 13:50
In less than a month, on May 12, the 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, the most important of its kind in the world, will roll out its red carpet for the best of international cinema. During almost two weeks marked by the absence of major US studios, usually present on the Croisette, moviegoers are promised “more pleasant and open” films.
In an analysis for AFP, Thomas Gastaldi, who compiles a list of the 100 most eagerly awaited films at Cannes every year, stated that, amid the war in Ukraine, conflicts in the Middle East and other predicaments, such as the energy crisis, authors are less likely to tell the world evident things, as in ‘the world is horrible, so I’ll just put horrible things on screen’.
Thus, the 21 feature films in the Official Selection include works by Sweden’s Ruben Ostlund, already a two-times winner of the Palme d’Or trophy, or by Spain’s celebrated Pedro Almodovar, at his seventh participation in the competition. They are joined by the Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, the exiled Russian Andrey Zvyagintsev and former winners Hirokazu Kore-eda (Japan) and Cristian Mungiu (Romania).
After the 2007 Palme d’Or for ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’, Cristian Mungiu returns to the Cannes competition with ‘Fjord’, a film shot in Norway and starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan.
As Cristian Mungiu put it, “’Fjord’ is, more than ever before in my career, the result of a collective effort, of an extensive co-production and of an international cast that acted together in the most solidary way possible… The most beautiful gift we could have received for our efforts is this selection at Cannes, a place where cinema is respected, appreciated and awaited like nowhere else in the world.”
Mungiu’s first film in English, but also the first Romanian film by the Romanian-born US actor Sebastian Stan, ‘Fjord’ was shot mainly in Norway in the spring of 2025, and brings together actors who speak English, Norwegian, Swedish and Romanian. It looks at a family and how it can be put to the test when values and worldviews differ. ‘Fjord’ is the fifth consecutive film by Cristian Mungiu selected in the Cannes competition, where in 2013, the Romanian director was a member of the Festival jury.
Also at Cannes this year, the Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude’s “Diary of a Chambermaid” (“Le Journal d’une femme de chamber”) was included among the 18 works in the official selection of the 58th edition of the Quinzaine des Cinéastes section. The plot focuses on the life of a young woman from Romania who works for a family in Bordeaux, in a film that mixes themes such as emigration, poverty and the relationship between the East and West, all cast in a form that, as he confessed, Radu Jude aimed to be if not original, at least unique, to the extent that it was designed especially for this film. (AMP)
