French filmmaker Justine Triet has won the prestigious Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival 2023 for her film Anatomy of a Fall. Triet has become the third woman to win the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. She joined Jane Campion (1993’s The Piano), and more recently, Julia Ducournau who won for Titane in 2021. The award ceremony was held on Saturday.

Triet was preceded on stage by Jane Fonda who spoke before jury president Ruben Ostlund who announced the win. Triet was emphatic in her acceptance speech and addressed the recent social unrest in France over retirement age reforms.

She said, “This year, our country has experienced a historic dispute… This dispute was denied and suppressed in a shocking manner, and this pattern of increasingly uninhibited dominating power is breaking out in several areas; obviously socially is where it is the most shocking, but we also see it in all spheres of society, and the cinema is no exception. The commodification of culture that the neo-liberal government is defending is breaking the French cultural exception. I dedicate this prize to all young female and male directors.”