When a conservative Romanian family moves to Norway, the place where wife/mother Lisbet is originally from, the family is met with unexpected pushback to their traditional values and the strictness they enforce on their children. While their new town professes extreme acceptance and radical tolerance of all, the Gheorghiu family finds themselves to be pariahs in the community, and when one day bruises are found on one of their kids, child services pays a visit, leading to a vicious legal battle to decide whether or not raising children in a home like this is acceptable. Based on a real court case in Norway, and the ensuing media attention that became a rallying cry for the religious right wing in Romania. Fjord is a film that examines dogma in both religion and in politics and asks questions about how far tolerance can and should extend.
From director Cristian Mungiu, who already won a Palme d’Or in 2007 for his film 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, Fjord is a similarly challenging and provocative work that looks deeply at the line in which government begins to interfere with the rights of its populace. Filmed primarily in a series of long takes and edited in only 3 days, this is a movie with such incredible precision that only a filmmaker like Mungiu could capture. With two Hollywood stars in the lead roles (Sebastian Stan of The Apprentice and of the MCU, as well as Renate Reinsve of Backrooms and FCFF 2025’s Sentimental Value), Fjord manages to cross over from arthouse darling to a potential mainstream hit. We will not promise an easy film to digest, but we can certainly promise a film that you will be discussing for days afterwards.
The 2026 edition of the Forest City Film Festival is powered by London Hydro.
