Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” was awarded the Palme d’Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in a ceremony that took place on Saturday. The festival’s prestigious top prize was given to the French Alps courtroom drama, which stars Sandra Hüller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband’s death. This is only the third time a woman has directed a movie that has won the Palme d’Or. One of the previous winners, Julia Ducournau, was on this year’s jury.
The awards were decided by a jury led by two-time Palme winner Ruben Östlund, the Swedish director who won the prize last year for “The Triangle of Sadness.” Cannes’ Grand Prix, its second prize, went to Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest,” a chilling Martin Amis adaptation about a German family living next door to Auschwitz. The ceremony preceded the festival’s closing night film, the Pixar animation “Elemental.”
A deadpan love story about a romance that blooms in a loveless workaday world where dispatches from the war in Ukraine regularly play on the radio, Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves” won the jury prize. Best actor was awarded to veteran Japanese star Koji Yakusho, who plays a reflective, middle-aged Tokyo man who cleans toilets in Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days.” Wenders’ film is a gentle, quotidian character study.
The Turkish actor Merve Dizdar took best actress for the Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “About Dry Grasses.” Ceylan’s expansive tale is set in snowy eastern Anatolia about a teacher, Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu), accused of misconduct by a young female student. Dizdar plays a friend both attracted and repelled by Samet.
Vietnamese-French director Tràn Anh Hùng won best director for “Pot-au-Feu,” a lush, foodie love story starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, set in a 19th-century French gourmet château. Yuji Sakamoto won best screenplay for “Monster,” a nuanced drama with shifting perspectives about two boys struggling for acceptance in their school at home. Sakamoto penned the Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s movie. “Monster” also won the Queer Palm, an honor bestowed by journalists for the festival’s strongest LGBTQ-themed film.
Quentin Tarantino, who won Cannes’ top award for “Pulp Fiction,” attended the ceremony to present a tribute to filmmaker Roger Corman. Tarantino praised Corman for filling him and countless moviegoers with “unadulterated cinema pleasure.” The festival’s Un Certain Regard section handed out its awards on Friday, giving the top prize to Molly Manning Walker’s debut feature, “How to Have Sex.”
This year’s Cannes edition was full of spectacle, stars, and controversy. Martin Scorsese debuted his Osage murders epic “Killers of the Flower Moon,” a sprawling vision of American exploitation with Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” Harrison Ford’s Indy farewell, launched with a tribute to Ford. Wes Anderson premiered “Asteroid City.”
The festival opened on a note of controversy. “Jeanne du Barry,” a period drama co-starring Johnny Depp as Louis XV, played as the opening night film. The premiere marked Depp’s highest profile appearance since the conclusion of his explosive trial last year with ex-wife Amber Heard. The selection of “Jeanne du Barry” added to criticisms of Cannes for being too hospitable to men accused of abusive behavior.
The 76th Cannes Film Festival saw Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” win the Palme d’Or, making it only the third movie directed by a woman to win the prestigious top prize. The event was full of spectacles, stars, and controversies, with Martin Scorsese debuting his Osage murders epic “Killers of the Flower Moon,” and Harrison Ford’s Indy farewell, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” launching with a tribute to Ford. Cannes’ choice to open the festival with “Jeanne du Barry,” a period drama co-starring Johnny Depp, received criticism for being too hospitable to men accused of abusive behavior.
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