French director third woman to win Palme d’Or
CANNES: French director Justine Triet became the third female filmmaker to take top honours at the Cannes Film Festival, winning the Palme d’Or from the competition jury yesterday for her roundly admired dramatic thriller Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d’une Chute).
The movie tells an emotionally intricate marriage story by way of a knotty courtroom drama — primarily in French, but with some English and German dialogue as well.
French auteur Julia Ducournau, the winner with Titane in 2021, served on this year’s competition jury.
The Palme wins for Ducournau and Triet spoke to the rising number of female filmmakers in competition each year at Cannes, which has long been criticised for programming so few women in its most prestigious section.
Seven of the 21 directors in competition this year were women, a Cannes record.
But it also spoke to the demographics of the French film industry, where female directors are better represented than in many other countries.
Triet received the Palme from Jane Fonda, who reminisced about the first time she came to Cannes decades ago.
‘‘There were no women directors competing at that time, and it never even occurred to us that there was something wrong with that . . .
‘‘We have a long way to go. ‘‘But still, we have to celebrate change when it happens.’’
Triet was joined on stage by her Anatomy of a Fall cast and crew, led by German actor Sandra Huller, who stars as a woman on trial for her husband’s murder.
Huller was one of the most prominent faces in the Cannes competition, having also costarred in The Zone of Interest, a disquieting, meticulously controlled Holocaust drama that had been widely tipped for the Palme.
Instead, the Germanlanguage film, written and directed by the British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, was awarded the Grand Prix, or second place. — TNS