Screening of Cristian Mungiu's Palme d'Or winner 'Fjord', about a Norwegian family whose life is upended by a local crime.
Cristian Mungiu's Fjord is playing at Phoenix Picturehouse on Walton Street, part of the Cinefest Film screenings. It's a long one—146 minutes—and it runs from Tuesday 27 October right through to Monday 16 December, so you've got plenty of time to fit it in.
It's a big cast, with Sebastian Stan leading alongside Renate Reinsve, Lisa Carlehed, Ellen Dorrit Petersen and Lisa Loven Kongsli. The story follows the Gheorghius family—Mihai, Lisbet and their five children—who've just moved to a small Norwegian town. Around them are the crystal-clear waters of the surrounding fjords, but they hide a murkier reality: how easily polarised the society has become. Mungiu frames the whole thing around one question: 'What happens when religious norms contradict the social ones?' The story eventually boils down to a single, crucial courtroom scene.
It's a high-profile arrival, too—Fjord won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. If you're not familiar with Mungiu, he's a Romanian director known for the kind of slow-burn, precise drama that lets a situation tighten around the characters until it snaps. This one takes that to a Norwegian town, and the cast is a mix of well-known faces and Scandinavian talent.
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As for the venue, you'll find it at Phoenix Picturehouse on Walton Street. The building opened in 1913 as the North Oxford Kinema, designed by local architect Gilbert T Gardner. It was renamed the Scala in 1920 and became one of the most important art-house cinemas in the UK outside London. The single auditorium was split into two in 1970, and it took the name Phoenix after a change of ownership in 1977. In 1989, it became the first of the Picturehouse family of cinemas. Fjord runs there from Tuesday 27 October to Monday 16 December.
