Sebastian Stan in tears as devastating drama gets 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes

Cannes Film Festival is in full swing, and that means the standing ovations are back, this time with Sebastian Stan receiving a 10-minute applause.

The Marvel star, 43, couldn’t help but feel emotional as the crowd erupted after a heartbreaking viewing of his new film Fjord.

It follows a family with strict religious views as they emigrate to a Norwegian village from Romania, clashing with the small town’s societal norms.

Sebastian, who is Romanian himself, stars as the father, Mihai Gheorghiu, who is thrown into turmoil after befriending neighbouring family, the Halbergs.

They become the centre of intense scrutiny and investigation after questions are brought over the treatment of their children.

At a Cannes screening, the crowd applauded for a whopping 10-minutes as Renate Reinsve, who plays mother Lisbet, and Sebastian fought back tears.

‘I want to thank everybody here for trusting me,’ director Cristian Mungiu said in French and then English, adding this was the ultimate indicator of whether the film would stand the test of time.

Discussing the film with Deadline, Sebastian shared: ‘I think the question of masculinity is really under a magnifying glass at the moment.

‘We’re having a lot of examples at the moment of very narcissistic, very aggressive, very entitled examples of being a man… It’s incredibly upsetting. It’s painful to see.’

Fjord marks the first time The Apprentice star will act in his native Romanian, having moved to the US with his mum at 12 years old after a few years in Vienna.

He speaks his native language to his mother but said the support he had from the Romanian crew on set was ‘very touching’.

‘I’d left when I left, and it’s not necessarily like I had a choice, it was the choice that my mom had made — I benefited from it and there’s nothing there to cry about — I just mean there was never a reunion that I experienced,’ Sebastian explained. ‘This film very much felt like that, when these crew members came around me and said, “Hey, you’re one of us. We’re so happy you’re doing this movie. It means the world to us. Thank you for acknowledging the country you’re from.”‘

He added it had motivated him to do the story justice, with the film based on the real story of Marius and Ruth Bodnariu.

Lengthy standing ovations are not unusual at the film festival, with James Gray’s Paper Tiger getting 10-minutes and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden securing 11 minutes of clapping on Friday.

After Fjord’s resounding applause, the world premiere of Nicolas Winding Refn’s trippy sci-fi horror Her Private Hell also received a 12-minute ovation.

The female-led film features a host of young stars, including Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Kristine Froseth, and Havana Rose Liu.

The Drive director gave his own three-minute speech, sharing how he had been dead for 25 minutes during a heart surgery, which made him want to live life to its fullest.

‘That changes you,’ he said, according to Deadline. ‘When I was brought back to life with electricity, that I’m alive again; I only have 25 years of my life to live.

‘But I’m going to make damn use of that to live life to the fullest. To make this film again and be back at Cannes where I came from is a huge step for mankind.’

Touching on the political landscape, he said that ‘the only thing that’s left is art’ and it is the only thing that brings us all together.

He concluded: ‘Cinema is about coming together as a collective experience, which is what human beings do. Yeah, we’re just human beings.

‘So this year one, day one, cinema is the future, cinema is alive, it’s resurrected.’

Fjord and Her Private Hell are both being released under the independent production company Neon, which has dominated Cannes for several years.

The company has taken home the Palme d’Or – given to the director of the Best Feature Film – every year since 2019, which went to Korean thriller Parasite.

This was followed by Titane, Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall, Anora and last year’s It Was Just an Accident.

Fjord, which is set for release on August 19 in France, has been nominated for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes.

John Travolta received a surprise honorary Palme d’Or on Friday night as he premiered his directorial debut at the festival.

Overwhelmed, he held up the award to show the audience – including Metro – as cheers continued, before kissing his fingers and pressing them to the Palme and then his heart again.

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