© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: 76th Cannes Film Festival – “Asteroid City” competition press conference – Cannes, France, May 24, 2023. Director Wes Anderson speaks. Photograph: Yara Nardi/Reuters
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Written by Miranda Murray
CANNES (Reuters) – French director Justine Tritt became the third female director to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, beating 20 other films in contention for the top prize.
Treatet described being the third woman to win a surprise and said that the decision is encouraging for the future.
“We are at the dawn of deep-seated changes in this regard,” she said after her victory.
Triet used her victory speech to criticize how protest against pension reforms in France had been “appallingly rejected and suppressed” and said more space was needed for young filmmakers to be able to make mistakes and start over.
Treat, who was previously nominated for “The Divination” in 2019, won the award over veteran directors like Hirokazu Kore Iida, Ken Loach and Wim Wenders, all of whom have at least one Palme d’Or under their belts.
She joins New Zealand’s Jane Campion and France’s Julia Ducorneau as the third woman to win the competition, which this year included a record seven female directors.
Presenting the award, Jane Fonda said that one day it would be normal for women to win, not a historic win.
“We have a long way to go,” said the film icon and activist. “But we still have to celebrate change when it happens.”
The Grand Prize, the second highest after the Palme d’Or, went to British director Jonathan Glazer’s “Area of Interest”, which is about a family living next door to Auschwitz.
“It’s very important that the film gets out into the world and we hope it will have an impact and get people talking about the themes in the film,” Glazer said after his win.
German actress Sandra Hoeller stars in both winning films. In “Anatomy of a Fall” she plays the writer of the prime suspect in her husband’s death, while in “Area of Interest” she is the wife of the commandant of the Auschwitz death camp.
However, the Best Actress award went to Merve Duzdar, who plays a teacher in an isolated village in Turkey in Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film “Around the Dry Grass”.
The best actor award went to the famous Japanese Koji Yakusho, who plays a toilet cleaner in Tokyo who is content with reading books and listening to music in the movie “Perfect Days” by German director Wim Wenders.
Finn’s “Foliage” by Aki Kaurismäki, which is back in competition after more than a decade, won the Jury Prize.
The award was accepted on his behalf by the two lead stars of the tragicomedy that follows a budding romance between a quiet young woman and a hard-drinking sandbag.
French-Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung took home the best director award for “The Pot-au-Feu,” a food-obsessed French film starring Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel as a married couple.
While presenting Best Screenplay, John C. Reilly showed his support for Hollywood’s Amazing Writers with about a minute of mime before saying, “What we just experienced is what the movie would be like without a screenwriter.”
The award went to Yuji Sakamoto for the Japanese film “Monster”, directed by Kore Ida, which follows a series of misunderstandings surrounding the friendship of two schoolchildren.
And on Friday, “Anatomy of a Fall” won first prize at the Palm Dog Awards for Border Collie Macy’s performance as Snoop in what organizers said was the toughest competition yet.
The closing film of the year was Pixar’s “Elemental,” an animated film about a city where the four elements live together, featuring the voices of Leah Lewis and Mamodo Athie.
