STORY: "Fjord," the drama by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, won the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or top prize on Saturday (May 23).

It is the second time Mungiu has won the prize, after 2007's "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days."

The film starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve is centered around the clash of values that ensues when a religious family relocates from Romania to a Norwegian village.

The second-place Grand Prize went to "Minotaur," a drama about a wife's infidelity, from Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev.

The best director prize was shared between Poland's Pawel Pawlikowski for his Thomas Mann drama "Fatherland" and the Spanish duo known as "Los Javis," Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo, for the Spanish Civil War epic "The Black Ball." The sprawling drama explored gay identity in the 1930s, and Calvo spoke of the pain and shame that previous generations had to live through.

The best actress prize was handed to the two leads of Ryusuke Hamaguchi's "All of a Sudden," France's Virginie Efira and Japan's Tao Okamoto, both of whom wiped away tears as they took to the stage.

Hamaguchi's slow-paced drama set in a Paris nursing home portray a deep friendship between a caregiver and a theatre director. Efira and Okamoto both switched between French and Japanese, having to learn each other's languages for their roles.

The best actor prize was also shared by the two main stars of Belgian World War One gay love story "Coward," Valentin Campagne and newcomer Emmanuel Macchia.

The jury prize went to "The Dreamed Adventure," a drama set in a border town in Bulgaria, where an archaeologist is exposed to the underworld of smuggling and refugee trafficking.

The Camera d'Or for a first-time filmmaker went to Rwandan director Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo, who looked into the genocide through the eyes of mothers.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

SHOWS: CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 23, 2026) (FRANCE TELEVISIONS/BRUT/AFFIF - Broadcast: No use France/ Only 90 seconds total of 79th Cannes Film Festival opening ceremony material can be used/ Editorial use only/ No use after 2200GMT May 25, 2026 /Must on-screen courtesy ‘Images France Televisions / Brut / AFFIF’/ No zooming-in on image/No blurring of logos/No archive/No resale. Digital: No use France/ Only 90 seconds total of 79th Cannes Film Festival opening ceremony material can be used / Editorial use only/ No use after 2200GMT May 25, 2026 / Must on-screen courtesy ‘Images France Televisions / Brut / AFFIF’/ No zooming-in on image/No blurring of logos/ Material can be used only for online version of news bulletins, which contains clips from the opening ceremony, and only on the website of the news channel/ No archive/ No resale.)

1. 79TH CANNES FESTIVAL JURY PRESIDENT, DIRECTOR PARK CHAN-WOOK SAYING (English): “This year’s Palme d’Or has been selected for shedding light on this precise issue of understanding and respecting the diversities of the world, in an artistically magnificent manner. It is Cristian Mungiu’s ‘Fjord’.”

2. VARIOUS OF MUNGIU REACTING, BESIDE HIS LEAD ACTORS, SEBASTIAN STAN AND RENATE REINSVE

3. MUNGIU WALKING UP TO STAGE

4. MUNGIU STANDING WITH PALME D’OR, AUDIENCE CHEERING “Bravo!”

5. CEREMONY IN PROGRESS

6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) “FJORD” DIRECTOR AND SCREENWRITER, CRISTIAN MUNGIU, SAYING:

“My feeling is that today the society is split, it's divided, it's radicalised. And if you want, this film is a pledge against any kind of fundamentalism. It's a pledge for these things that we quote very, very often, like tolerance and inclusion and empathy. These are lovely words, and we are in Europe, we are used to lovely words, but we need to apply them more often. Thank you.”

7. CEREMONY IN PROGRESS

8. JURY MEMBER, ACTOR DEMI MOORE, SAYING (English): “The Grand Prix goes to ‘Minotaur’, by Andrey Zvyagintsev.”

9. VARIOUS OF ZVYAGINTSEV BEING HUGGED BY ACTOR IRIS LEBEDEVA

10. ZVYAGINTSEV WALKING ON STAGE TO RECEIVE AWARD FROM PRESENTER, ACTOR, ZOE SALDANA

11. (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) “MINOTAUR” DIRECTOR ANDREY ZVYAGINTSEV SAYING (TRANSLATION PROVIDED BY FESTIVAL):

“Millions of people around the world dream of one thing, that the massacres finally stop, and the only person who can put an end to this butchery is the president of the Russian federation. Put an end to this carnage. The whole world is awaiting this. Thank you very much.”

12. JURY MEMBER ACTOR STELLAN SKARSGARD SAYING (English): “Well, the prize of Best Actor goes to two actors from the film ‘Coward’ by Lukas Dhont”/ ACTOR ISAACH DE BANKOLE SAYING (English): “Valentin Campagne and Emmanuel Macchia”/ CAMPAGNE AND MACCHIA REACTING

13. CAMPAGNE AND MACCHIA GOING UP ON STAGE

14. VARIOUS OF CAMPAGNE RAISING ARMS, AND SAYING (French): “Yes! Yes!”

15. MACCHIA AND CAMPAGNE AT PODIUM, WITH AWARD

16. (SOUNDBITE) (French) ACTOR IN “COWARD”, VALENTIN CAMPAGNE, SAYING:

“Thank you, Lukas, voila, for changing our lives, and letting the two of us dream.”

17. (SOUNDBITE) (French) ACTOR IN “COWARD”, EMMANUEL MACCHIA, SAYING (STARTING OVER SHOT OF JURY MEMBERS LISTENING):

“I really hope that this film will enable young men and women to love themselves and to accept themselves as they are, because that is the most beautiful thing, I think.”/ CAMPAGNE GIVING MACCHIA A TAP OF SUPPORT

18. AUDIENCE WATCHING

19. VARIOUS OF MACCHIA AND CAMPAGNE HUGGING/ CAMPAGNE PUTTING HIS LEGS AROUND MACCHIA

20. JURY MEMBER, DIRECTOR CHLOE ZHAO SAYING (English): “Best actress goes to the two actresses of the film ‘All of a Sudden’, by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto / OKAMOTO AND EFIRA REACTING

21. EFIRA STANDING AND HUGGING HAMAGUCHI

22. OKAMOTO AND EFIRA WALKING ON STAGE

23. PARK AND JURY MEMBERS APPLAUDING

24. (SOUNDBITE) (French) ACTOR IN “ALL OF A SUDDEN” (“SOUDAIN”), VIRGINIE EFIRA, SAYING:

“At the end of the film, I said, also in tears of course, I said ‘This was a joy and an honour, at every instant.’

25. (SOUNDBITE) (French) ACTOR IN “ALL OF A SUDDEN” (“SOUDAIN”), VIRGINIE EFIRA, SAYING:

“Ryusuke (Hamaguchi) made us experience an adventure, actually not an adventure, this word is too small. A life experience, which will remain engraved forever.”

26. OKAMOTO AND EFIRA

27. (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR IN “ALL OF A SUDDEN” (“SOUDAIN”), TAO OKAMOTO, SAYING:

“Thank you so much for recognising us as a pair, because if it wasn’t her (Efira), I’m not…”/ EFIRA SAYING (French): “Same here. There aren’t many films where women meet in the way that we did.”

28. (SOUNDBITE) (English/French) ACTOR IN “ALL OF A SUDDEN” (“SOUDAIN”), TAO OKAMOTO, SAYING:

“This is beyond a dream. Thank you.”/ EFIRA SAYING: “Thank you.”

29. JURY MEMBER, DIRECTOR AND SCREENWRITER DIEGO CESPEDES, SAYING (English): “Well the best director award is a joint award, and the first prize goes to the incredible Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo for ‘La bola negra’. (Spanish) The great 'Los Javis'!"

30. CALVO AND AMBROSSI PUTTING HEADS IN HANDS, RISING FROM SEATS

31. JURY MEMBER, DIRECTOR LAURA WANDEL, SAYING (English): “And the second one goes to Pawel Pawlikowski for ‘Fatherland’.”

32. DIRECTOR, PAWEL PAWLIKOWSKI, RISING FROM SEAT

33. (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, JAVIER AMBROSSI, SAYING (CONTINUES OVER SHOTS OF AUDIENCE AND AMBROSSI SPEAKING):

“Directing this movie, I found that the only way we can honour the suffer, the silence, the death of the LGBT people that came before us, is making sure that the next generation has the same freedom or more.”

34. AUDIENCE CLAPPING

35. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) DIRECTOR, JAVIER CALVO, SAYING (CONTINUES OVER SHOTS OF AUDIENCE AND CALVO SPEAKING) (TRANSLATION PROVIDED BY FESTIVAL):

“’The Black Ball’ is something eats up a lot of space in our community. What we have inside is pain, shame, we have to live through this, it’s a suffering from generation to generation, and we have to rise above this situation, things have to change, I think each generation must rise above this, we are not have to experience and thank you very much.”

36. ACTOR, PENELOPE CRUZ, CLAPPING

37. PAWLIKOWSKI WALKING ACROSS STAGE TO RECEIVE AWARD

38. AUDIENCE

39. (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, PAWEL PAWLIKOWSKI, SAYING (CONTINUES OVER SHOTS OF AUDIENCE AND PAWLIKOWSKI SPEAKING):

“This was a piece of disastrous ‘mise en scene’, as you could see, but…”

40. (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, PAWEL PAWLIKOWSKI, SAYING (CONTINUES OVER SHOTS OF AUDIENCE AND PAWLIKOWSKI SPEAKING):

“We live in a world where more and more people are absolutely convinced that they're absolutely right. And it's scary. It's really scary. We're in a horrible place. And I think it's up to cinema to resist that. It's up to cinema to show that things are not so straightforward. And this is one of the reasons we made our film. So thank you. Thank you, jury, for appreciating the film. Thank you, everyone."

41. JURY MEMBER, ACTOR RUTH NEGGA, SAYING (English): “The Jury Prize goes to ‘The Dreamed Adventure’ by Valeska Grisebach” / AUDIENCE CLAPPING

42. DIRECTOR, VALESKA GRISEBACH, RISING FROM SEAT

43. ACTOR AND FILMMAKER, GAEL GARCIA BERNAL, GIVING AWARD TO GRISEBACH

44. (SOUNDBITE) (English) "A DREAMED ADVENTURE" ("DAS GETRÄUMTE ABENTEUER") DIRECTOR, VALESKA GRISEBACH, SAYING (STARTS OVER SHOT OF GRISBEACH SPEAKING TO JURY):

“Thank you so much, really, from the bottom of my heart. And thank you so much to the festival and Thierry Fremaux.”

45. (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, VALESKA GRISEBACH, SAYING (STARTS OVER SHOTS OF AUDIENCE):

“I really have to ask one woman to come to the stage. This is Yana Radeva. She's my biggest, biggest collaborator, so inspiring.”

46. ACTOR, YANA RADEVA RISING FROM SEAT

47. RADEVA, WALKING ONTO STAGE

48. AUDIENCE CLAPPING

49. (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, VALESKA GRISEBACH, SAYING:

“It was so wonderful and inspiring to work with Yana Radeva, who gave all her, I don't know, knowledge to this film. And I want to thank you so, so much for that.”

50. SCREENWRITER, PAUL LAVERTY, SAYING (English): “The best screenplay prize goes to Emmanuel Marre for ‘A Man of his Time’”

51. VARIOUS OF MARRE RISING FROM SEAT, GOING TO STAGE

52. (SOUNDBITE) (French) "A MAN OF HIS TIME" ("NOTRE SALUT") DIRECTOR, EMMANUEL MARRE, SAYING:

“We made this film with many different people and we wondered how violence, how the need to dominate, how the need to be reassured by excluding other people, how these petty bosses don’t know how to love, don’t know how to share, don’t know how to look at other people like a human being, well these people who play at being fathers, bosses, when they’re the head of a state or a company or whatever, they exclude, they bomb, they commit genocide.”

53. ACTRESS AND FILMMAKER, MONIA CHOKRI, SAYING (French): “The Camera D’Or goes to the film, Marie-Clementine for Ben’Imana.”

54. VARIOUS OF DIRECTOR, MARIE-CLÉMENTINE DUSABEJAMBO, RISING FROM SEAT, WALKING TO STAGE

55. (SOUNDBITE) (French) DIRECTOR, MARIE-CLÉMENTINE DUSABEJAMBO, SAYING (CONTINUES OVER SHOTS OF AUDIENCE):

“To make a first film is jumping into the unknown, but when we're surrounded by such a strong cinema family, we don't fall, we rise up. I dedicate this prize to these mothers from these hills of Mushubati who placed their trust in me to tell their stories, to all the mothers in my country and also those around the world, to many other stories that are waiting to be told. Thank you to the Cannes festival for giving wings to our first steps, thank you to our country Rwanda, thank you very much.”

56. VARIOUS OF AUDIENCE CLAPPING