A still from ‘The Taste of Things’
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The Taste of Things has been selected as France’s Oscar submission for Best International Feature at the 2024 Academy Awards. This comes as a surprise for those following the race as it was expected that Justine Triet’s Anatomy of Fall would be selected. 

Anatomy of Fall was also expected to be the film which had a good chance of crossing over into other Oscars categories including lead actress contender Sandra Hüller, who, incidentally, also stars in the U.K.’s International submission, The Zone of Interest. Anatomy of Fall won this year’s Cannes Palme d’Or, the festival at which The Taste of Things debuted. 

The Taste of Things (Original title: The Pot-au-Feu ), is an adaptation of Marcel Rouffe’s 1924 novel ‘The Passionate Epicure’. Directed by Trần Anh Hùng, the film stars Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel as two chefs who are lovers across 20 years in the 19th century.

Neon, which acquired the North American distribution rights of the film, will make a full Oscar push for it. The French committee’s shortlisted films include Clement Cogitore’s Sons of Ramses, Thomas Cailley’s The Animal Kingdom, and Denis Imbert’s On The Wandering Paths. France has not been nominated at the Oscars since 2019’s Les Misérables. Interestingly, the country made the Oscar shortlist last year for Saint Omer.