Jane Fonda hit Cannes Film Festival winner Justine Triet with the Palme d’Or scroll at this year’s ceremony.
One of the biggest moments in the film industry every year is that in which the coveted Palme d’Or is handed over to the director of the Canne Film Festival’s best film. As it happens, sometimes it’s not handed but rather chucked, as this is exactly what happened at the 76th Cannes Film Festival when Jane Fonda presented the award to director Justine Triet for her film Anatomy of a Fall.
In a video that would go viral if TikTok users knew what the Cannes Film Festival was, Jane Fonda is seen trying to get the attention of Justine Triet, who left the Palme d’Or scroll at the podium. Despite her efforts, Triet is either too wrapped up in the moment or the crowd is too loud to notice, and so Fonda tosses it directly at her head. While the crowd does seem to laugh, one might immediately question the professionalism of Fonda, even if she did praise the festival for how progressive it had become over the past decades–something she’s not even sure the upcoming Barbarella remake can achieve…
During the presentation, Jane Fonda noted that she first came to the Cannes Film Festival 60 years prior, telling the audience at the Auditorium Louis Lumière, “A lot of you weren’t even born, oh my god! It was different, it was smaller, it took place in another hall somewhere else. But more importantly, there were no women directors competing at that time. And it never even occurred to us that something was wrong with that! We’ve come a long way.” Such a long way that one of the very few female winners ever had the award thrown at her…
Of historical note, Justine Triet is just the third female director to have a film win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, following Julia Ducournau (2021’s Titane) and Jane Campion (1993’s The Piano), although the latter did share it with Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine in the first tie since 1982.
Jane Fonda also made headlines at Cannes for her statements regarding numerous co-stars and late filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, who directed her in 1972’s Tout Va Bien, saying, “He was a great filmmaker. I take my hat off. A great filmmaker. But as a man? I’m sorry. No, no.” Had Godard ever won the Palme d’Or, one wonders if Fonda would have lobbed the prize at his head as well…
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