There was a lot of justified anger towards this year’s Oscar nominations, but the voters did make smart choices on some of the nominations. Yes, I’m using this moment to rave about Anatomy of a Fall, a brilliant little French film directed by Justine Triet and starring Sandra Huller. AOAF is a wonderful film and I was so happy to see it get nominated in Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. I actually think AOAF has a good shot in screenplay, and Sandra Huller might be a sleeper pick for Best Actress. Huller is only the third German actress to ever get an Oscar nom (after Luise Rainer and Marlene Dietrich). I don’t want to hear sh-t about “Huller stole Margot Robbie’s nomination” or “Triet stole Greta Gerwig’s nomination.” Both Robbie and Huller should have been nominated, and both Triet and Gerwig should have been nominated. There was and is room for two women in Best Director. Triet thinks so too – she spoke to the Hollywood Reporter after the noms came out, and she mentioned her surprise that she was the only woman nominated in the director category.

Anatomy of a Fall director Justine Triet was nominated as the sole female filmmaker in the best director category during the Oscar nominations on Tuesday morning, which, the director tells The Hollywood Reporter, is something she could have never imagined.

“I cried… the first one [nomination] was for script and I was so happy. But it was after when I watched the name of my editor, I cried, because it was so surprising. I didn’t imagine that Laurent Sénéchal could be involved in this game,” says Triet. “And of course for best director. I was surprised because there are no more women beside me. So of course, I’m so, so lucky and very proud of all these things.”

To be nominated by her peers in the directing category was “really moving” for the French filmmaker. “Most of these people since I was a child I’ve admired so much, and of course to be involved in this history, it means a lot for me. It was not a dream because I could not imagine,” she says. Triet’s nomination came following a year where zero female filmmakers were nominated in the best director category. This year, Barbie director Greta Gerwig was notably snubbed in the category. Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things), Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer), Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest) and Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon) were nominated in the coveted category alongside Triet.

The Academy has nominated only seven women total (eight with this year’s nominations) in the best director category, and only three have won. Gerwig (for Lady Bird) along with Lina Wertmüller, Sofia Coppola, Kathryn Bigelow, Emerald Fennell, Chloe Zhao and Jane Campion are the only women nominated in the century-long history of the Academy Awards.

“When we were in the writing process, we were sure that it will be very, not a small movie, but a very independent and very ‘whoa,’ so of course, it’s a very huge fairytale for us and it gives me a lot of confidence for the future. I say to myself, ‘Okay, maybe it’s possible to do very radical movies, to follow our intuition and to stay in the game,’ you know? This is crazy. I want to cry all day. I never cry and today I was crying because this is really, really huge.”

When asked what other films she was rooting for this awards season, she mentioned Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro and Gerwig’s Barbie, among others. She said that during her campaign trail, where she won the Golden Globe for best screenplay and the BAFTA for best international independent film, among others, she loved meeting Past Lives director Celine Song and Poor Things star Mark Ruffalo.

[From THR]

I’m so pleased for her and I hope these nominations ensure that all of her future projects are fully financed. I doubt Triet will be offered some big American film, but I bet she wouldn’t even want to do anything like that. Now, maybe she’ll invite Mark Ruffalo or Margot Robbie to come to France and star in one of her movies. As for “And of course for best director. I was surprised because there are no more women beside me” – that’s a classy and simple way of pointing out that the Academy should have nominated Gerwig. And maybe Celine Song too (Past Lives got nominated in Best Picture, after all).

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.