Oscars 2024: 'Anatomy Of A Fall' Wins Best Original Screenplay

Anatomy of a Fall director Justine Triet and co-writer Arthur Harari have won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay last night, at the 96th Academy Awards ceremony. While the French Oscar Committee had chosen to submit Tran Hahn Hung’s The Taste of Things starring Juliette Binoche over Anatomy of a Fall for the best international feature film category, the French director made history by becoming the first French woman to be nominated in the Best Picture category, and was also the only woman nominated in the Best Director category this year. The film earned a total of 5 nominations, including Best Actress for Sandra Hüller.

Justine Triet and Arthur Harari win Best Original Screenplay

In Anatomy of a Fall, Hüller portrays a novelist and mother of an 11-year-old visually impaired young boy, who founds herself accused of the murder of her husband, after the latter fell from a window of their home in the French Alps. The film was the big winner of the prestigious Palme d’or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023.

The Oscar ‘’will help me through my mid-life crisis, I think.’’ joked Triet during her acceptance speech. She continued ‘’This is a crazy year (…) It is very glamour tonight, it contrasts slightly with how it all started. We were stuck in our house with two kids, it was the lockdown, and we hooked them up with cartoons to have peace, and there was no line between work and diapers.’’

Academy Award Nominee Sandra Hüller attends the 96th Oscars ceremony

A future collaboration between Steven Spielberg and Justine Triet ?

While speaking with French Canal Plus journalist Didier Allouch on the red carpet last night, Justine Triet revealed an incredible conversation between legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg and Arthur Harari: ‘’Arthur was sitting down next to him at the Oscar Nominees Luncheon, and they talked for an hour. He wanted to meet us, and ordered us a script, that was the most absurd thing.’’ Harari then joined Triet and added ‘’It was a pure hazard to be sitting next to him, or maybe some forces wanted us to meet, I don’t know. There is no project, but he seemed very interested by our screenplay (…) He said; ‘I would like you to write a screenplay of this complexity for me‘, I said ‘Really?‘ and he said ‘Yes, and I will say the same thing to Justine‘. So I fell down my chair.’’

Whether such a project will come to life or not, and while Triet and Harari have had an incredible career in France, it seems like their multiple wins at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes and now at the Oscars, only mark the beginning of an incredible international career.