Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall wins the top prize at Cannes

Justine Triet took home the coveted Palme d'Or for her film Anatomy of a Fall at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday in a ceremony bestowing the festival's top prize.

The French director's big win marked the third time ever a film directed by a woman has been awarded with the Palme d'Or.

Anatomy of a Fall stars Sandra Hüller as a writer trying to prove her innocence in her husband's death in an engrossing, rigorously plotted French courtroom drama that puts a marriage on trial.

The film beat 20 other films in competition for the top prize, including offerings from veteran directors like Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ken Loach and Wim Wenders, all of whom have at least one Palme d'Or under their belts.

Justine joins New Zealand's Jane Campion and France's Julia Ducournau, who was on was on this year's jury, as only the third woman to have won the competition, that this year included a record seven female directors.

Justine admitted that being only the third woman to win was 'surprising' and she said the decision was encouraging for the future.

Justine, who had previously been nominated for Sibyl in 2019, said more space needed to be made for young filmmakers to be able to make mistakes and start over.

She said: 'We're at the dawn of deep-seated changes in this respect', also using her award speech to criticize how the protest against pension reforms in France 'has been denied and repressed in a shocking way'.

'The protests were denied and repressed in a shocking way,' said Justine, who linked that governmental influence to that in cinema. 'The merchandizing of culture, defended by a liberal government, is breaking the French cultural exception.'

'This award is dedicated to all the young women directors and all the young male directors and all those who cannot manage to shoot films today,' she added. 

'We must give them the space I occupied 15 years ago in a less hostile world where it was still possible to make mistakes and start again.'

Cannes' Grand Prix, its second prize, went to Jonathan Glazer´s 'The Zone of Interest,' a chilling Martin Amis adaptation about a German family living next door to Auschwitz. Hüller also stars in that film.

The awards were decided by a jury presided over by two-time Palme winner Ruben Östlund, the Swedish director who won the prize last year for Triangle of Sadness.

The ceremony preceded the festival's closing night film, the Pixar animation Elemental.

Jane Fonda, who introduced the award, said that one day it would be normal for women to win, not historic.

She actress and activist, said: 'We have a long way to go. But still, we have to celebrate change when it happens.'

She recalled coming to Cannes in 1963 when, she said, there were no female filmmakers competing 'and it never even occurred to us that there was something wrong with that.'

Remarkably, the award for Anatomy of a Fall gives the indie distributor Neon its fourth straight Palme winners. 

Neon, which acquired the film after its premiere in Cannes, also backed Triangle of Sadness, Ducournau's Titane and Bong Joon Ho's Parasite, which it steered to a best picture win at the Academy Awards.

Anatomy of a Fall did pocket one other sought-after prize: the Palme Dog. The honor given to the best canine in the festival's films went to the film's border collie, Snoop.

The jury prize went to Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki's Fallen Leaves, a love story about a romance that blooms in a loveless workaday Helsinki , where dispatches from the war in Ukraine regularly play on the radio.

Best actor went to veteran Japanese star Koji Yakusho, who plays a reflective, middle-aged Tokyo man who cleans toilets in Wim Wenders' Perfect Days.

The Turkish actor Merve Dizdar took best actress for the Nuri Bilge Ceylan's About Dry Grasses. 

Ceylan's expansive tale is set in snowy eastern Anatolia about a teacher, Samet (Deniz Celiloglu), accused of misconduct by a young female student. 

Dizdar plays a friend both attracted and repelled by Samet.

Dizdar said: 'I understand what it's like to be a woman in this area of the country. I would like to dedicate this prize to all the women who are fighting to exist and overcome difficulties in this world and to retrain hope.'

Vietnamese-French director Tràn Anh Hùng took best director for Pot-au-Feu, a lush, foodie love story starring Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel and set in a 19th century French gourmet château.

Best screenplay was won by Yuji Sakamoto for Monster.

Sakamoto penned Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda's nuanced drama, with shifting perspectives, about two boys struggling for acceptance in their school at home. 

Monster also won the Queer Palm, an honor bestowed by journalists for the festival's strongest LGBTQ-themed film.

Quentin Tarantino, who won Cannes' top award for Pulp Fiction, attended the ceremony to present a tribute to filmmaker Roger Corman. 

Tarantino praised Corman for filling him and countless moviegoers with 'unadulterated cinema pleasure.'

'My cinema is uninhibited, full of excess and fun,' said Corman, the independent film maverick. 'I feel like this what Cannes is about.'

The festival's Un Certain Regard section handed out its awards on Friday, giving the top prize to Molly Manning Walker's debut feature, How to Have Sex.

Saturday's ceremony drew to close a Cannes edition that hasn't lacked spectacle, stars or controversy.

The biggest wattage premieres came out of competition. Martin Scorsese debuted his Osage murders epic Killers of the Flower Moon, a sprawling vision of American exploitation with Leonardo DiCaprio and Lily Gladstone. 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Harrison Ford´s Indy farewell, launched with a tribute to Ford. Wes Anderson premiered 'Asteroid City.'

The festival opened on a note of controversy. Jeanne du Barry, a period drama co-starring Johnny Depp as Louis XV, played as the opening night film.

The premiere marked Depp's highest profile appearance since the conclusion of his explosive trial last year with ex-wife Amber Heard.