2023 Cannes Film Festival Awards winners: Justine Triet (‘Anatomy of a Fall’) becomes just the third female director to win the Palme d’Or
Awards for the in competition films of the 76th Cannes Film Festival were announced live in Cannes at the Grand Palais theater today where Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall won the Palme d’Or, the top prize of the festival.
Anatomy of a Fall tells the story of Sandra, Samuel and their 11-year-old visually impaired son, Daniel, who have been living far from everything in the mountains for a year. When Samuel is found dead at the foot of their house a suspicious death investigation is opened and Sandra is soon charged despite doubt of the death being a suicide or homicide. What unfolds becomes a dissection of the couple in the light of a trial.
Before today, only two female directors had ever won the Palme: Jane Campion for 1993’s The Piano and Ducournau. In 2013, president Steven Spielberg and his jury co-awarded the Palme to director Abdellatif Kechiche for Blue is the Warmest Colour and his two lead female stars, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux, the first and still only time the award was ever been given to actors.
This also marks the fourth year in a row (save the canceled 2020 edition) that a NEON-backed film has won the Palme, a streak that began in 2019 with Parasite and continued with Titane (2021) and Triangle of Sadness in 2022. Parasite went on to win Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the Oscars, while Triangle of Sadness was nominated for those three awards earlier this year.
Two-time Palme winner Ruben Östlund (2017’s The Square, 2022’s Triangle of Sadness) leads the competition jury with members Paul Dano, Julia Ducournau (2021 Palme winner for Titane), Brie Larson, Denis Ménochet, Rungano Nyoni, Atiq Rahimi, Damián Szifrón and Maryam Touzani.
The Palme d’Or (aka The Golden Palm) contains 19 gold leaves and is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival’s organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festival’s highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film. In 1964, the Palme d’Or was replaced again by the Grand Prix, before being reintroduced in 1975.
Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest won the Grand Prize of the festival (a defacto second place), while Aki Kaurismäki’s was awarded the Jury Prize. Best Actor went to Kōji Yakusho for Perfect Days by Wim Wenders, which tells the story of Hirayama, who seems utterly content with his simple life as a cleaner of toilets in Tokyo. In a surprise, Merve Dizdar won the Best Actress award for Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses, which follows a teacher working in rural eastern Anatolia with hopes of moving to Istanbul when he is accused of abusing a student and where Dizdar’s role of Nuray was seen as a supporting role. Cannes does not have supporting categories and in the past traditional supporting performances have won, including Julianne Moore for 2014’s Maps to the Stars.
The directing prize went to Aki Kaurismäki for Fallen Leaves and the screenplay award to Yûji Sakamoto for Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster. Before presenting the screenplay announcement, John C. Reilly took an exceptionally long pause, highlighting a world without writers in solidarity with the ongoing WGA strike.
Presenting the awards this evening were: Jane Fonda (Palme d’Or), Roger Corman and Quentin Tarantino (Grand Prize), Pete Docter (Director), John C. Reilly (Screenplay), Song Kang-ho and Zar Amir Ebrahimi (Acting) and Orlando Bloom (Jury Prize).
Several high profile films played out of competition including the festival’s opener, Jeanne du Barry from Maïwenn (who was under fire for assaulting a journalist) and starring Johnny Depp, who was involved in the very public defamation lawsuit with Amber Heard in 2022. Martin Scorsese’s long-awaited Killers of the Flower Moon, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro, marked the director’s first appearance on the Croisette in 38 years and the new and final installment of the Indiana Jones franchise (The Dial of Destiny) screened with star Harrison Ford receiving an Honorary Palme d’Or. The festival closed with the newest Pixar film, Elemental, directed by Peter Sohn.
This year, the ceremony will be live-streamed around the world for free on the Brut America Facebook page when the ceremony begins at 2:30 p.m. ET/11:30 a.m. PT. Red carpet and press conference coverage will also be available on the official Cannes Film Festival YouTube channel.
Here is the full list of winners.
COMPETITION
- Palme d’Or: Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet – review
- Grand Prize: The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer – review
- Jury Prize: Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismäki – review
- Director: Tran Anh Hung for The Pot-au-Feu – review
- Actor: Kōji Yakusho for Perfect Days
- Actress: Merve Dizdar for About Dry Grasses
- Screenplay: Yûji Sakamoto for Monster – review
UN CERTAIN REGARD
- Un Certain Regard Prize: How to Have Sex by Molly Manning Walker – review
- Jury Prize: Hounds by Kamal Lazraq
- Best Director: Kadib Abyad (The Mother of All Lies) by Asmae El Moudir – review
- Freedom Prize: Goodbye Julia by Mohamed Kordofani
- Ensemble Prize: Crowra (The Burti Flower) by João Salaviza, Renée Nader Messora (award also goes to cast and crew)
- New Voice Prize: Augure (Omen) by Baloji Tshiani
CRITICS’ WEEK (SEMAINE DE LA CRITIQUE)
- Grand Prize: Tiger Stripes by Amanda Nell Eu
- French Touch Prize of the Jury: It’s Raining in the House by Paloma Sermon-Daï
- Leitz Cine Discovery Prize for Short Film: Boléro by Nans Laborde-Jourdàa
- Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award: Jovan Ginić for Lost Country by Vladimir Perišić
- Gan Foundation Award for Distribution: Pyramide Films, French distributor for Inchallah by Amjad Al Rasheed
- Canal + Award for Short Film: Boléro by Nans Laborde-Jourdàa
- SACD Award: Iris Kaltenbäck, actress/writer of The Rapture
DIRECTORS FORTNIGHT (QUINZAINE DES RÉALISATEURS)
- Europa Cinemas Cannes Label for Best European Film: Creatura by Elena Martín
- SACD Prize: A Prince by Pierre Creton
FIPRESCI
- Official Selection: The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer
- Un Certain Regard: Los Colonos by Felipe Gálvez Haberle
- Parallel sections: Levante by Lillah Halla
CAMERA D’OR: Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell by Thien An Pham
SHORT FILM
- Palme d’Or: 27 by Flóra Anna Buda
- Special Mention: Fár by Gunnur Martinsdóttir Schlüter
LA CINEF
- First Prize: Norwegian Offspring by Marlene Emilie Lyngstad
- Second Prize: Hole by Hwang Hyein
- Third Prize: Ayyur (Moon) by Zineb Wakrim
Queer Palm: Monster by Hirokazu Kore-eda
Palm Dog: Snoop from Anatomy of a Fall
Ecumenical Jury Prize: Perfect Days by Wim Wenders (Special Mention: The Old Oak by Ken Loach)
The Golden Eye, Documentary Prize – The Year of the Documentary
Four Daughters by Kaouther Ben Hania
The Mother of All Lies by Asmae El Moudir
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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