How a Cannes Prize-Winner From Norway Sold Itself to the World — One Country at a Time

Joachim Trier's "Sentimental Value" won the Cannes Grand Prix, but the story that matters now is what happened after the trophy: a string of small, cunning distribution campaigns that turned a two-hour-fifteen-minute Norwegian drama into a genuine art-house hit across continents.

Distributors from five countries gathered last week at a Europa Distribution panel during New Nordic Films in Haugesund, Norway, to compare notes on how they sold Trier's film — and why the lesser-known "The Love That Remains," by Hlynur Pálmason, proved a tougher sell despite also premiering at Cannes. Variety

The numbers tell a vivid story. In Taiwan, Swallow Wings' Albert Yao said "Sentimental Value" drew roughly 22,000 admissions across a January-to-April theatrical run. The distributor timed the release to the peak of awards season and built the campaign around collectible artwork: successive poster designs sourced from Japan, a sisters-focused variant, and both U.S. and fan-created versions, paired with character bookmarks. It was a strategy aimed at audiences who treat a cinema visit as an event.

In Romania, Bianca Maria Roiu of Bad Unicorn found that festival heat preceded her. Screenings at Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest sold out within minutes, months before the commercial release. Bad Unicorn then mounted a "Joachim Trier Winter" retrospective across Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca and Timișoara, pairing the new film with two earlier Trier works: "Oslo, August 31st" and "The Worst Person in the World." "Sentimental Value" stayed in Romanian cinemas for 16 weeks and surpassed 29,000 admissions.

For context, Roiu noted that an earlier film she handled, "Armand" — also starring Renate Reinsve — struggled to draw Romanian audiences. The Golden Bear winner "Dreams" fared better than "Armand" but still fell well short of what "Sentimental Value" achieved.

Czech distributor Aerofilms took a different route. Marketing lead Anna Rampa said the company positioned the film around its ensemble cast, its emotional accessibility and its Scandinavian identity. An early showcase at the Karlovy Vary film festival, attended by Stellan Skarsgård — who plays a once-great filmmaker in the story — helped build momentum ahead of a winter release. The Czech run drew roughly 36,000 admissions, outperforming Aerofilms' result for "The Worst Person in the World."

The cast reads as an international draw on paper: Reinsve, Skarsgård, Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, with U.S. distribution handled by Neon. But the campaigns across Taiwan, Romania and Czechia each leaned on local festival connections, retrospective framing and physical, collectible marketing rather than star power alone.

Pálmason's "The Love That Remains," by contrast, proved harder to scale commercially. The panel did not detail comparable admission figures for that film, but the contrast was clear: a Cannes premiere alone does not fill theatres, and the distributors who cracked "Sentimental Value" did so by treating each territory as a bespoke campaign rather than a booking.

What ties these campaigns together is patience. Sixteen weeks in Romania. Four months in Taiwan. A retrospective touring three Romanian cities. None of it required a blockbuster budget — it required distributors willing to build a film's reputation from the ground up, one audience at a time.