Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall wins the top prize at Cannes

Justine Triet won the coveted Palme d’Or for her film Anatomy of a Fall at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday at a ceremony where the main prize of the festival is awarded.

The French director’s big win was the third time ever that a film directed by a woman has been awarded the Palme d’Or.

In Anatomy of a Fall, Sandra Hüller plays a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband’s death in a gripping, painstakingly plotted French courtroom drama where a marriage is tried.

The film beat out 20 other films competing for the top prize, including offers from veteran directors such as Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ken Loach and Wim Wenders, all of whom have at least one Palme d’Or to their name.

Justine joins New Zealand’s Jane Campion and France’s Julia Ducournau, who was on this year’s jury, as the only third woman to win the competition, which included a record seven female directors this year.

Justine admitted that being only the third woman to win was “surprising” and she said the decision was encouraging for the future.

Justine, who was previously nominated for Sibyl in 2019, said more space should be made for young filmmakers to make mistakes and start over.

She said: “We are on the cusp of profound changes in this regard,” also using her award speech to criticize how protests against pension reforms in France have been “shockingly denied and suppressed.”

“The protests were shockingly denied and suppressed,” says Justine, who linked that government influence to that in the cinema. “The merchandising of culture, championed by a liberal government, breaks the French cultural exception.”

“This award is dedicated to all young female directors and all young male directors and all those who fail to make films today,” she added.

“We have to give them the space I took fifteen years ago in a less hostile world where it was still possible to make mistakes and start over.”

The Cannes Grand Prix, second prize, went to Jonathan Glazer’s ‘The Zone of Interest’, a chilling adaptation from Martin Ami about a German family living next to Auschwitz. Hüller also stars in that film.

The prizes were determined by a jury chaired by two-time Palme winner Ruben Östlundthe Swedish director who won last year’s prize for Triangle of Sadness.

The ceremony preceded the closing film of the festival, the Pixar animation Elemental.

Jane Fonda, who introduced the award, said that one day it would be normal for women to win, not historically.

She actress and activist, said: ‘We still have a long way to go. Still, we should celebrate change when it happens.’

She recalled coming to Cannes in 1963 when, she said, there were no female filmmakers involved “and it never occurred to us that there was anything wrong with that.”

Notably, the award for Anatomy of a Fall gives indie distributor Neon its fourth consecutive Palme winners.

Neon, which acquired the film after its Cannes premiere, also endorsed Triangle of Sadness, Ducournau’s Titane, and Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite, which led it to a Best Picture win at the Academy Awards.

Anatomy of a Fall has bagged another coveted award: the Palm Dog. The honor for best dog in the festival’s films went to the film’s border collie, Snoop.

The jury prize went to Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, a love story about a romance that blossoms in the loveless, everyday Helsinki, where messages from the war in Ukraine are regularly heard on the radio.

Best Actor went to veteran Japanese star Koji Yakusho, who plays a thoughtful middle-aged Tokyo man who cleans toilets in Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days.

Turkish actor Merve Dizdar won the Best Actress award for Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses.

Ceylan’s elaborate story is set in snowy eastern Anatolia about a teacher, Samet (Deniz Celiloglu), accused of misconduct by a young female student.

Dizdar plays a friend who is both attracted and repelled by Samet.

Dizdar said, “I understand what it’s like to be a woman in this part of the country. I would like to dedicate this award to all women who fight to survive and overcome difficulties in this world and retrain hope.”

Vietnamese-French director Tràn Anh Hùng was voted best director for Pot-au-Feu, a lavish love story about gourmets starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel set in a 19th-century French gastronomic castle.

Best Screenplay was won by Yuji Sakamoto for Monster.

Sakamoto wrote Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s nuanced drama, with shifting perspectives, about two boys who struggle at home to be accepted at their school.

Monster also won the Queer Palm, an award given by journalists for the festival’s strongest LGBTQ-themed film.

Quentin Tarantino, who won Cannes’ top prize for Pulp Fiction, attended the ceremony to pay tribute to filmmaker Roger Corman.

Tarantino praised Corman for filling him and countless moviegoers with “genuine cinematic pleasure.”

“My cinema is uninhibited, full of excess and fun,” says Corman, the independent film buff. “I feel like this is what Cannes is about.”

The festival’s Un Certain Regard section presented the awards on Friday, with the top prize being awarded to Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature film, How to Have Sex.

Saturday’s ceremony concluded a Cannes edition that has not been without spectacle, stars or controversy.

The premieres with the largest wattage came from competition. Martin Scorsese debuted his epic Osage kills Killers of the Flower Moon, a sprawling vision of American exploitation starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Harrison Ford’s farewell to Indy, launched with a tribute to Ford. Wes Anderson premiered ‘Asteroid City’.

The festival opened on a note of controversy. Jeanne du Barry, a historical drama starring Johnny Depp as Louis XV, played as the opening film.

The premiere marked Depp’s most prominent appearance since the conclusion of his explosive lawsuit last year with ex-wife Amber Heard.