49th César Awards: ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ Wins Best Film, Director, Actress; Judith Godrèche Speaks on Sexual Abuse in the French Film Industry

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Anatomy of a Fall has won Best Film at the 49th César Awards, also taking Best Director for Justine Triet, Best Actress for Sandra Hüller, Best Supporting Actor for Swann Arlaud, Best Original Screenplay for Triet and Arthur Harari and Best Editing. Triet is only the second woman ever to win Best Director here, after Tonie Marshall, who won for 1999’s Venus Beauty Institute.

Triet dedicated her Best Film award to all women, saying “those who feel trapped in their choices, in their solitude, those who exist too much and those who don’t exist enough, to those who were wounded and liberate themselves by speaking out.” She gave special recognition to the actresses from her own films, including Hüller, Lætitia Dosch, Adele Exarchopoulos and Virginie Efira.

Thomas Cailley’s supernatural father-son drama The Animal Kingdom led the nominations with 12 and dominated the technical categories, winning cinematography, costume design, original score, sound and visual effects.

Best Actor went to Arieh Worthalter for The Goldman Case and Best Supporting Actress was Adèle Exarchopoulos for All Your Faces. Jean-Baptiste Durand’s Junkyard Dog was the winner for Male Revelation (Raphaël Quenard), beating out Anatomy of a Fall‘s Milo Machado Graner, and also the winner for Best First Film.

French actress, screenwriter and filmmaker Agnes Jaoui and director Christopher Nolan received honorary César Awards. Nolan was introduced on stage by Marion Cotillard, a co-star in his films Inception and The Dark Knight Rises. In his speech, Nolan highlighted that when he made his second film, Memento, “no one in the world wanted to show it, and then Philippe Hellmann from UGC decided to show it at the Grand Rex Theater” in Paris. He continued, saying that the success that the film had there “changed (his) life.” Nolan’s Oppenheimer was also nominated for Best Foreign Film but lost to The Nature of Love by Monia Chokri. Jaoui is best known for The Taste of Others, which won two César Awards and was nominated for a best foreign-language Oscar in 2001.

A highlight of the ceremony, which was held at the Olympia Theater in Paris on Friday evening and aired lived on Canal+, came when Judith Godrèche, who recently accused French directors Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon of sexual assault, took to the stage with a standing ovation. Both Jacquot and Doillon have denied the accusations and Doillon said, through his lawyer, that he was going to sue Godrèche for defamation.

At the 2020 César Awards, Portrait of a Lady on Fire actress Adèle Haenel walked out of the ceremony when Roman Polanski was announced as the winner of best director and brought the #MeToo movement to France in the process. In 2023 she announced that she is leaving the film industry because of its “general complacency” towards sexual predators. 

Godrèche said she felt “like a revenant from the America who comes knocking at an armored door.” She continued, “For some time now, voices have been unleashed, the idealized image of our fathers has been shattered, power almost seems to be in a state of turmoil, could it be possible for us to look at the truth in the eye?”

“To take on our responsibilities? To be actors, actresses of a world that is questioning itself?,” she asked. “For some time now, I’ve been talking and talking, but I can’t hear you, or only a little. Where are you? What are you saying? A whisper. Half a word. I know it’s scary to lose subsidies, to lose roles, to lose jobs. I’m scared, too.”

Here is the complete list of winners of the 49th César Awards.

Best Film

All Your Faces
Anatomy of a Fall – WINNER
The Animal Kingdom
The Goldman Case
Junkyard Dog

Best Director

Catherine Breillat, Last Summer
Thomas Cailley, The Animal Kingdom
Jeanne Herry, All Your Faces
Cédric Kahn, The Goldman Case
Justine Triet, Anatomy of a Fall – WINNER

Best Actor

Romain Duris, The Animal Kingdom
Benjamin Lavernhe, Abbé Pierre – A Century of Devotion
Melvil Poupaud, Just the Two of Us
Raphaël Quenard, Yannik
Arieh Worthalter, The Goldman Case – WINNER

Best Actress

Marion Cotillard, Little Girl Blue
Léa Drucker, Last Summer
Virginie Efira, Just the Two of Us
Hafsia Herzi, The Rapture
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall – WINNER

Best Supporting Actor

Swann Arlaud, Anatomy of A Fall – WINNER
Anthony Bajon, Junkyard Dog
Arthur Harari, The Goldman Case
Pio Marmaï, Yannick
Antoine Reinartz, Anatomy of a Fall

Best Supporting Actress

Leila Bekhti, All Your Faces
Galatea Bellugi, Junkyard Dog
Élodie Bouchez, All Your Faces
Adèle Exarchopoulos, All Your Faces – WINNER
Miou Miou, All Your Faces

Male Revelation

Julien Frison, Marguerite’s Theorem
Paul Kircher, The Animal Kingdom
Samuel Kircher, Last Summer
Milo Machado Graner, Anatomy of a Fall
Raphaël Quenard, Junkyard Dog – WINNER

Female Revelation

Celeste Brunnquell, No Love Lost
Kim Higelin, Consent
Suzanne Jouannet, The Royal Way
Rebecca Marder, Grand Expectations
Ella Rumpf, Marguerite’s Theorem – WINNER

Best Original Screenplay

Jeanne Herry, All Your Faces
Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, Anatomy of a Fall – WINNER
Thomas Cailley and Pauline Munier, The Animal Kingdom
Nathalie Hertzberg and Cédric Khan, The Goldman Case
Jean-Baptiste Durand, Junkyard Dog

Best Adapted Screenplay

Vanessa Filho, Consent
Valérie Donzelli and Audrey Diwan, Just the Two of Us – WINNER
Catherine Breillat, Last Summer

Best Animated Feature

Chicken for Linda! (Chiara Malta and Sébastien Laudenbach) – WINNER
Mars Express (Jérémie Périn)
No Dogs or Italians Allowed (Alain Unghetto)

Best Documentary

Atlantic Bar (Fanny Molins)
Four Daughters (Kaouther Ben Hania) – WINNER
Little Girl Blue (Mona Achache)
On the Adamant (Nicolas Philibert)
Our Body (Claire Simon)

Best Foreign Film

Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismäki)
Kidnapped (Marco Bellocchio)
The Nature of Love (Monia Chokri) – WINNER
Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)
Perfect Days (Wim Wenders)

Best First Film

Bernadette (Léa Domenach)
Junkyard Dog (Jean-Baptiste Durand) – WINNER
The Rapture (Iris Kaltenbäck)
Vermin (Sebastien Vanicek)
Vincent Must Die (Stéphan Castang)

Best Cinematography

Simon Beaufils, Anatomy of a Fall
David Cailley, The Animal Kingdom – WINNER
Patrick Ghiringhelli, The Goldman Case
Jonathan Ricquebourg, The Taste of Things
Nicolas Bolduc, The Three Musketeers (Parts 1 & 2)

Best Editing

Francis Vesin, All Your Face
Laurent Sénéchal, Anatomy of a Fall – WINNER
Lilian Corbeille, The Animal Kingdom
Yann Debet, The Goldman Case
Valérie Loiseleux, Little Girl Blue

Best Production Design

Emmanuelle Duplay, Anatomy of a Fall
Julia Lemaire, The Animal Kingdom
Angelo Zamparutti, Jeanne du Barry
Toma Baquéni, The Taste of Things
Stéphane Taillasson, The Three Musketeers (Parts 1 & 2) – WINNER

Best Costume Design

Ariane Daurat, The Animal Kingdom – WINNER
Pascaline Chavanne, The Crime Is Mine
Jürgen Doering, Jeanne du Barry
Tran Nu Yên Khé, The Taste of Things
Thierry Delettre, The Three Musketeers (Parts 1 & 2)

Best Original Music

Andrea Laszlo De Simone, The Animal Kingdom – WINNER
Vitalic, Disco Boy
Delphine Malausséna, Junkyard Dog
Gabriel Yared, Just the Two of Us
Guillaume Roussel, The Three Musketeers (Parts 1 & 2)

Best Sound

All Your Faces (Rémi Daru, Guadalupe Cassius, Loïc Prian, Marc Doisne)
Anatomy of a Fall (Julien Sicart, Fanny Martin, Jeanne Delplancq, Olivier Goinard)
The Animal Kingdom (Fabrice Osinski, Raphaël Sohier, Matthieu Fichet, Niels Barletta – WINNER)
The Goldman Case (Erwann Kerzanet, Sylvain Malbrant, Olivier Guillaume)
The Three Musketeers (Parts 1 & 2) (David Rit, Gwennolé Le Borgne, Olivier Touche, Cyril Holtz, Niels Barletta)

Best Visual Effects

Thomas Duval, Acid
Cyrille Bonjean, Bruno Sommier, & Jean-Louis Autret, The Animal Kingdom – WINNER
Lise Fischer and Cédric Fayolle, The Mountain
Oliver Cauwet, The Three Musketeers (Parts 1 & 2)
Léo Ewald, Vermin

Best Short Film

L’Attente (Alice Douard) – WINNER
Bolero (Nans Laborde-Jourdàa)
Rapide (Paul Rigoux)
Les Silencieux (Basile Vuillemin)

Best Animated Short Film

Drôles d’oiseaux (Charlie Belin)
Été 96 (Mathilde Bédouet) – WINNER
La forêt de mademoiselle Tang (Denis Do)

Best Documentary Short Film

L’Acteur (ou la surprenante vertu de l’incompréhension) (Hugo David and Raphaël Quenard)
L’Effect de mis rides (Claude Delafosse)
La méchanique des fluides (Gala Hernández López) – WINNER