Anatomy of a Fall wins the European University Film Award 2023

University students across Europe chose Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet to receive this year’s European University Film Award.

The European Film Academy and Filmfest Hamburg announced the decision on Friday night during an official reception for the nominees of the 2023 European Film Awards on the eve of the festive gala on Saturday, 9 December in the Arena, Berlin.

Since October, the five nominated films, based on the European Film Awards Feature and Documentary Film Selections 2023, have been viewed and discussed in 24 universities in 25 countries before each institution selected its favourite film. In early December, one student representative from each university attended a meeting in Hamburg to decide on the overall winner.

The jury says: “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.”

The aim of this initiative by the European Film Academy and Filmfest Hamburg is to involve a younger audience, to spread the European idea and to transport the spirit of European cinema to an audience of university students. It shall also support film dissemination, film education and the culture of debating.

The European University Film Award 2023 is made possible by 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..