Anatomy of a Fall wins EUFA 2023
After a three-day deliberation meeting in Hamburg attended by 24 students representing 24 European countries the french film ANATOMY OF A FALL by Justine Triet was awarded the European University Film Award (EUFA), which is organised by Filmfest Hamburg and the European Film Academy.
For the past year, Sandra, a German writer, her French husband Samuel, and their eleven-year-old son Daniel have lived a secluded life in a remote town in the French Alps. When Samuel is found dead in the snow below their chalet, the police question whether he committed suicide or was killed. Samuel's death istreated as suspicious, presumed murder, and Sandra becomes the main suspect. Little by little the trial becomes not just an investigation of the circumstances of Samuel's death, but an unsettling psychological journey into the depths of Sandra and Samuel's conflicted relationship.
"In a subversive deconstruction of courtroom dramas, Triet puts truth itself on trial as much as her protagonist Sandra. Artifice and what can be perceived as true are pressing, contemporary issues affecting everybody, especially the impressionable youth of today with the dangers of social media. Everything can be taken out of context, even from private conversations and the intimacy of a relationship. In the digital age of so many conflicting ‘truths’, Triet masterfully shows how everybody can be rendered blind,” says the jury consisting of 24 students from the participating universities about their choice.
Twenty-four universities from 24 European countries are involved in the European University Film Award, each sending a delegate to the conference, where the nominated films were discussed and the winner was voted on. The previous winners of the European University Film Awards are: 2022: EO (D:Jerzey Skolimowski), 2021: FLEE (D: Jonas Poher Rasmussen), 2020: SAUDI RUNAWAY (D: Susanna Regina Meures); 2019: PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (D: Céline Sciamma); 2018: HAPPY AS LAZZARO (D: Alice Rohrwacher); 2017: HEARTSTONE (D: Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson); 2016: I, DANIEL BLAKE (D: Ken Loach).
The European University Film Award is organized by FILMFEST HAMBURG and the European Film Academy in close cooperation with the NECS European Network for Cinema and Media Studies and is made possible with the support of the Hamburg Foundation for the Advancement of Research and Culture, the Claussen-Simon Foundation and the Alfred Toepfer Foundation F.V.S..
In 2019 it became an official category of the European Film Awards.
Find out more about the 8th European University Film Award here
