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From two-time Palme d'Or winner Cristian Mungiu, a Norwegian woman and her devout Romanian husband relocate with their five children to a remote, close-knit, coastal town. Their teenage children form a fast bond with a neighboring family as unease begins to simmer around their rigid beliefs. When allegations of abuse emerge, they are forced to confront a system of judgment that blurs the line between concern and prejudice. (Synopsis by NEON)

Cristian Mungiu was born in lasi, Romania in 1968.

After studies of literature and languages at the lasi University, he worked as a teacher, photographer and journalist in written press, radio and television. He started publishing short stories in periodicals in 1987.

He studied film at the Bucharest National Film University, worked during his studies as assistant director for several foreign directors shooting in Romania including Bertrand Tavernier and directed 8 short films during and after his studies.

He won the National HBO Screenplay Competition in 2000 with Slum and in 2002 went to US and co-wrote Gangster for Dennis Hopper.

His first feature, Occident, premiered at the Directors' Fortnight in 2002 and was an audience hit in Romania and a festival darling.

In 2007, his second film, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, was awarded with the Palme d'Or and was considered the best foreign film of the year by the European Film Academy, by the European Critic Association Fipresci and by several American entities such as LA Film Critic Association, NY Film Circle, Independent Spirit Awards.

He returned to Cannes in 2009 with the collective film Tales from the Golden Age, and then with Beyond the Hills (2012), double awarded for Best Screenplay and Best Actresses, Graduation (2016) awarded for Best Director and R.M.N. (2022).

In 2026 he won his second Palme d'Or for Fjord, a co-production starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve.

The film was awarded three more prizes in Cannes as best film by parallel juries, including the European Critic Association Fipresci.

The film is released in US by Neon and runs for the Academy Awards.

Cristian Mungiu is the founder of a production company, Mobra Films who produced several Romanian features and series - working also for HBO, Netflix or Annapurna.

His distribution company, Voodoo Films, released several arthouse titles in Romania, including authors such as Sean Baker, Jim Jarmusch, Nuri Bilde Ceylan or Justine Triet.

He also founded Asociatia Cinemascop that runs two established Romanian film festivals: Les Films de Cannes a Bucarest (since 2009) and American Independent Film Festival (since 2015), visited by prominent authors and talents from all over the world and several workshops for young filmmakers about creative writing or working with actors.

As a writer, he continued to write for periodicals such as Positive or Elle and he published 7 stories in 2004 and Tania lonascu, My Grandmother, A Romanian Biography in 2021. The letter was translated to French and Italian.

His first photography exhibition, The Biography of a Storyteller was inaugurated in 2025 in Paris, itinerated to La Rochelle and will be exhibited in 2026 in NY and in 2027 in Montreal. His second exhibition, Fjord will be inaugurated in 2026 in Romania.

He started lecturing in 2008.

He was awarded the cultural distinction Chevalier des art et des lettre by the French State in 2020.

He is in production now with Tales from the Golden Age 3, The Warsaw Pact that he wrote, produces and co-directs.