Justine Triet

Justine Triet (born 17 July 1978) is a French film director, screenwriter, and editor.

In 2023, Triet won the Palme d'Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival for the courtroom thriller Anatomy of a Fall, becoming the third female director to win the award. In 2024, Triet became the first female French filmmaker to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Career
Triet is a graduate of the Beaux-Arts de Paris. The majority of her early work consisted of short documentary filmmaking focused on social justice issues and commentary, beginning with Sur Place (2007), L’Orde des mots (2007), Solférino (2009), and Des ombres dans la maison (2010). On the Spot or Sur Place (2007), shot, edited, and directed by Triet, is a documentary film depicting the 2006 youth protests in France with a more nuanced coverage than what was televised. Binding Words or L’Orde des mots (2007), co-directed and edited by Triet, tackles questions of sexual identity head on. Solférino (2009), shot, edited, and directed by Triet, covered the 2007 French presidential election. Shadows in the House or Des ombres dans la maison (2010), shot, edited, and directed by Triet, focuses on Paulo Gustavo's life with his mother who struggles with alcoholism.

In 2012, Triet began to shift away from documentary films, writing and directing her first short film, Two Ships, which garnered a total of 9 total awards and 6 additional nominations in the film festival circuit that year, including Best European Short Film at the Berlin International Film Festival and Grand Prize for the Best International Short-film at the Angers European First Film Festival.

Her directorial debut feature film, Age of Panic, was presented as part of the ACID programme at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and was ranked number 10 on Cahiers du Cinéma's Top 10 List in 2013, after being highlighted by critic Stéphane Delorme in the April 2013 editorial among a generation of young, emerging French filmmakers. The film also won the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the Paris International Film Festival.

In 2016, she wrote and directed the romantic comedy-drama In Bed with Victoria, which was nominated for the César Awards for Best Film and Best Original Screenplay. In 2019, her comedy-drama film Sibyl premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or.

In February 2020, her 50 inspirational films were published on LaCinetek. Triet listed two works each by Gus Van Sant (Gerry and Psycho), Robert Zemeckis (What Lies Beneath and Contact), and Frederick Wiseman (Juvenile Court and Welfare), as well as three by Richard Fleischer (Mandingo, The Boston Strangler, See No Evil).

In 2023, her courtroom thriller Anatomy of a Fall was presented at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or, making Triet the third female director to win the award. She also won two Golden Globe Awards for Best Screenplay and Best Foreign Language Film. In 2024, Triet became the first female French filmmaker and the eighth female director to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director for Anatomy of a Fall, also winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, with the film receiving a total of 5 nominations, including Best Picture. Triet also won a BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for Best Director and Best Film Not in the English Language for Anatomy of a Fall, which received 7 nominations in total, including Best Film. Triet also won three César Awards for Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Anatomy of a Fall, which won a total of 6 awards at the 2024 César Awards.

In June 2024, Triet was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Personal life
Triet is in a relationship with French filmmaker Arthur Harari, with whom she has two daughters. The couple first worked together on Triet's Age of Panic (2013), with Arthur starring as the friend and the lawyer of Laetitia's boyfriend. Since then, the couple had occasionally helped with each others projects, the most recent one being Anatomy of a Fall (2023); however, they do not plan to collaborate on any future projects following the completion of this film.

Triet is a member of the French gender equality group Collectif 50/50.

While receiving her Palme d'Or at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Triet declared her support for the pension reform protest movement and opposed to President Emmanuel Macron's repression of it. She accused the "neo-liberal government" of fostering cultural commercialization and weakening France's cultural exceptionalism. Triet dedicated her prize to new directors and those facing challenges in the film industry, urging greater chances and support for rising talent. Her remarks linked to debates that took place in France in October 2022 at the Appel aux Etats Generaux (Call for General Assemblies), an exhibition conference, during which some industry insiders blamed French "auteur" filmmaking for dwindling box office and urged for a reduction in French film output. Triet's speech was criticized by Macron's party, right-wing activists and politicians, and by French culture minister Rima Abdul Malak, who said she was "flabbergasted by such unfair comments." Triet's speech received support from left-wing politicians and the SRF, the French directors's guild. According to Variety, several French insiders claimed that Triet was "punished" for criticizing Macron when France's Oscar committee chose to submit The Taste of Things over Anatomy of a Fall to represent the country in the Best International Feature Film category at the 96th Academy Awards.

In January 2024, she signed a petition against Javier Milei's reforms on Argentine film schools.

Filmography
Film

Documentaries