Justine Triet Wins Palme d’Or at Cannes

Fécamp, France native Justine Triet, was awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival over the weekend, becoming the third female director in the festival’s 76-year history to win the festival’s highest honor. Notably, Triet’s film was one of seven films directed by women in competition at Cannes this year; there were 21 films total in competition.

Triet directed the French thriller Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une Chute) and co-wrote the film’s script with Arthur Harari. The film, a courtroom drama, stars Sandra Hüller. The actress plays a writer desperately attempting to prove her innocence following her husband’s death. Neon acquired the film after its Cannes premiere.

While accepting the Palme d’Or, Triet criticized France’s president, President Macron, and France’s ongoing pension reform-related protests. The Cannes Film Festival banned protests from happening near the Palais des Festivals at Cannes. Triet said, NPR reports, “The protests were denied and repressed .” Other female directors who have won the Palme d’Or include Jane Campion (The Piano, 1993) and Julia Ducournau (Titane, 2021).

Other prizes were spread out among films from various corners of the world. Best Director went to Vietnamese-French filmmaker Trần Anh Hùng for The Pot-Au-Feu; it stars French actors Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel. Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki was awarded the Jury Prize for his film Fallen Leaves. Best Screenplay was awarded to Japanese screenwriter Yûji Sakamoto for Monster.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Festival de Cannes (@festivaldecannes)

The Cannes Grand Prix (the festival’s second-highest honor) was awarded to Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, a film about a German family living near Auschwitz. British female director Molly Manning Walker’s How to Have Sex, a comedy/drama about consent and assault, won the Un Certain Regard Prize. The award was clearly a surprise to Walker, who was not in Cannes when the prize was announced – she had left Cannes for Rome and was hurriedly making her way back to the city after a flight delay. Arriving directly from her airport taxi, she was able to accept the award in person, a source close to the film’s production reported.

Award surprises are pleasant surprises. Veteran A-list Hollywood actor Harrison Ford, 80, was surprised with an honorary Palme d’Or for his work in the film industry. Ford’s latest film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny premiered at this year’s festival. Of the honorary surprise Palme d’Or, Ford said to the audience, “You know, I love you too. You give my life purpose and meaning, and I’m grateful for that.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Festival de Cannes (@festivaldecannes)

Ford was among many Hollywood titans of an older generation who were honored this year. Michael Douglas was celebrated at the festival for his work, along with Michelle Yeoh, who was honored with Kering’s Women in Motion award. But Cannes isn’t just about winning prizes and which films get the awards. It’s about everything that happens in the in-between spaces and all the incredible films which win a place at the festival. In the Un Certain Regard category, of which actor John C. Reilly (Chicago, Step Brothers) served as jury president, films like How to Have Sex (the category winner), The New Boy, The Delinquents, The Animal Kingdom, The Nature of Love, If Only I Could Hibernate, Omen, and more, all made waves and offered some of the best and most original storytelling at the festival.

For the In Competition category, talented filmmakers like Wes Anderson (Asteroid City), Catherine Corsini (Le Retour), Todd Haynes (May December), Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (Black Flies), Marco Bellocchio (Rapito), and more brought top-notch filmmaking to the festival.

The festival saw mixed weather – sun, rain, sun, and more rain. Umbrellas were out in full force at the beginning of the festival, making for somewhat uncomfortable queues, with umbrellas bumping heads and irritating some of the Cannes festival workers, who urged audience members to close their umbrellas to make for easier entrance into the theaters.

Given the changing weather elements, it was fitting that Pixar’s Elemental closed out the festival. Elemental is an animated film about a fire element (Ember) and a water element (Wade) developing a friendship (amusingly, somewhat mirroring the mixture of warm temperatures and wet, rainy days seen at this year’s festival). Before the Elemental screening, stars like Quentin Tarantino, Jane Fonda, Orlando Bloom, John C. Riley, and Cannes jury president (and two-time Palme d’Or winner), Ruben Östlund, walked the red carpet at the Grand Théâtre Lumière one final time for this year’s festival.

Elemental was among several other big-budget Hollywood blockbusters which premiered at Cannes this year, including James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny starring Harrison Ford, and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro. Another high-profile film was Jeanne du Barry starring Johnny Depp. The film stars and was directed by Franco-Algerian actress and filmmaker, Maïwenn.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Festival de Cannes (@festivaldecannes)

Elemental charmed crowds and received a five-minute standing ovation. When the clapping subsided, the director of the Pixar production, Peter Sohn, told the admiring crowd inside the Lumière theater, “This film has been about the richness of diversity. Our lives are better when there are different points of view,” Variety reported.

Cannes Film Festival is a celebration of the global film community and the diversity within it. With the 76th Cannes Film Festival concluded, there’s so much to celebrate from the festival: An incredible roster of diverse films from around the world, a record number of African films featured at the festival, a record number of films from female directors, and, of course, another successful festival along the sun-dappled French Riviera. As Cannes attendees pack up and return home, the buzz of excitement is already brewing for next year’s festival.