Cannes (France) (EFE).- The French Justine Triet today became the third woman to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes for “Anatomie d’une chute” and starred in the most applauded moment of the gala for a very political speech in which he harshly criticized the government of Emmanuel Macron and his pension reform.
A reform that has raised France against the Executive, which has ignored this social movement, as highlighted by Triet, who also denounced that Macron’s neoliberal policies are ending the so-called ‘French cultural exception’, an institutional defense that has allowed France stays culturally afloat in the midst of globalization.
A harsh intervention that took center stage from the list of winners of the 76th edition of the Festival, which contains almost all the films scheduled and did not raise any controversy.
Award Winners
The great favorite was “The Zone of Interest”, by the British Jonathan Glazer, who impressed in Cannes with his narration of the daily life of the Auschwitz commandant and his family in an idyllic house full of flowers behind whose walls the screams of the soldiers can be heard. Jews massacred by the Nazis.
He did not leave empty and took the Grand Jury Prize, the second most important of the list of winners.
“Anatomie d’une chute” was another one of the ones that sounded the most to win one of the jackpots with its measured story about the suspicious death of a man who falls from the window of his house in the French Alps while inside they are only his wife and his blind son.
The circumstance occurs that in both films the protagonist is the German Sandra Hüller, whom everyone considered the winner of the female interpretation award, but the Cannes regulations prevent a film from winning two awards if it has won La Palma or the Grand Jury Award.
So the triumph of the two titles meant that Hüller was left without his well-deserved reward, which went to the Turkish Merve Dizdar, for her work on the introspective “Dry Grasses”, by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, an in-depth study of isolation.
It was one of the surprises of a night in which almost all the awards were as expected.
The Japanese Koji Yakusho, star of Wim Wenders’ film “Perfect Days”, won the award for best male performance for his role as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo, a fair recognition for a job full of nuances.
The best director award went to French-Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung for “La Passion de Dodin Bouffant,” starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, the night’s most unexpected and most exaggerated award.
In script, the prize went to the Japanese Yuji Sakamoto for “Monster”, a film directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda that deals with childhood and homosexuality.
And the Jury Prize went to a gem by Finn Aki Kaurismaki, “Fallen Leaves,” a gorgeous love story starring Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen, who have collected the award on behalf of the director.
Palme d’Or winners
In summary, a correct track record that has made Triet the third woman to receive the Palme d’Or after Jane Campion for “The Piano” in 1993, and Julia Ducournau, for “Titane” in 2021, who in this edition was part of the jury, chaired by the Swede Ruben Östlund and also integrated, among others, by the Argentine filmmaker Damián Szifron.
Östlund pointed out in a subsequent press conference that this year there was “really” a roster of “very powerful” candidates.
Although he did not reveal the details of the internal debates of the jury, which also included actress Brie Larson, Östlund noted that Triet’s film created a “conversation” between the members.
The Swedish filmmaker thought, above all, of the collective experience that it will be to see the selected films in a movie theater. And about that experience is “what the cinema should be about”, he completed.
The list of winners was announced at a gala presented by Chiara Mastroianni, whose most emotional moment was when veteran filmmaker Roger Corman came on stage, accompanied by Quentin Tarantino, to present the Cannes Grand Jury Prize and received a huge and long standing ovation.
The entry Triet, a Palme d’Or and a very political speech to close the 76th Cannes Film Festival was first published in EFE Noticias.