Fjord wins Palme d'Or Cannes

Cristian Mungiu’s “Fjord” won the Palme d’Or on Saturday, May 23, at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, capping the festival’s closing ceremony in Cannes, France. Deadline, Vanity Fair and the Associated Press all listed “Fjord” as the top prize winner, with AP describing it as a Norway-set drama about political polarization. “Fjord” stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, according to Deadline’s winners report and coverage from other trade outlets. The win gave Romanian director Mungiu a second Palme d’Or after his 2007 victory for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” AP and RogerEbert.com reported. ### Who won the top prize, and why is that notable? (deadline.com) The Palme d’Or went to “Fjord,” making Mungiu one of the few directors to win Cannes’ top prize twice. AP said the award was presented by a jury headed by South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, while Deadline and IndieWire also listed “Fjord” atop their final winners tallies. (yahoo.com) Park Chan-wook said, according to RogerEbert.com’s ceremony coverage, that the jury had spent two weeks discussing “films by diverse personalities” with “jurors with diverse personalities.” That comment accompanied a prize list that spread major awards across several competition titles. ### What else did the Cannes jury award? Andreï Zvyagintsev’s “Minotaur” won the Grand Prix, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline and Awards Daily. (apnews.com) Valeska Grisebach’s “The Dreamed Adventure” took the Jury Prize, while directing honors were shared by Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo for “La Bola Negra” and Paweł Pawlikowski for “Fatherland,” those same reports said. (rogerebert.com) Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto jointly won best actress for “All Of A Sudden,” and Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne shared best actor for Lukas Dhont’s “Coward,” Deadline reported. Those results placed several of the festival’s most-discussed competition films on the closing-night winners list. ### Which stars defined the closing weekend red carpet? (hollywoodreporter.com) Yahoo’s closing-week fashion recap highlighted Monica Bellucci, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Bella Hadid and Penélope Cruz among the most visible names in the festival’s final stretch. The same roundup also pointed to Demi Moore, Chloé Zhao and Léa Seydoux as standout late-week attendees. (deadline.com) W Magazine’s Cannes fashion gallery tied some of those appearances directly to the competition slate, noting Penélope Cruz in connection with “The Black Ball” and Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan in connection with “Fjord.” That overlap is typical of Cannes, where awards contenders and red-carpet coverage crest at the same moment during the final weekend. (yahoo.com) ### When exactly did the 2026 festival run? The 79th Cannes Film Festival ended on May 23, with multiple outlets dating the closing ceremony to Saturday. Vanity Fair’s live coverage followed the event through the Palme d’Or announcement, while Deadline described the ceremony as the close of this year’s festival at the Palais des Festivals. Some fashion coverage dated the festival from May 12 to May 23, while other reports described activity on May 13 as the public start of red-carpet proceedings. (wmagazine.com) Across the coverage, the key fixed point is that the awards were handed out on May 23. (vanityfair.com) ### What happens after the prizes are handed out? “Elástica Films has set an October 2026 release for ‘La Bola Negra’ in Spain,” Deadline reported in a separate Cannes dispatch published before the closing ceremony. That gives at least one prize-winning title an immediate next milestone on the calendar. Neon’s role in “Fjord” will also draw attention after the distributor’s latest Palme d’Or winner, according to IndieWire and AwardsWatch, which both noted the company’s continuing Cannes streak. (yahoo.com) Release dates for “Fjord” outside the festival had not been detailed in the sources reviewed by Sunday. (indiewire.com) (deadline.com)