Saint Omer (film)

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Saint Omer
Directed byAlice Diop
Screenplay by
Produced by
  • Toufik Ayadi
  • Christophe Barral
Starring
CinematographyClaire Mathon
Edited by
  • Faruk Yusuf Akayran
  • Amrita David
Music byThibault Deboaisne
Production
company
Srab Films
Distributed byLes films du losange
Release dates
Running time
122 minutes
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench

Saint Omer is a 2022 French film directed by Alice Diop and starring and . It is Diop's first narrative feature after working as a documentary filmmaker. In the film, Rama (Kagame) is a pregnant young novelist who attends the trial of Laurence Coly (Malanda), a Senegalese woman accused of murdering her 15-month-old child by leaving her on a beach to be swept away by the tide, in order to turn the tragic event into a literary retelling of Medea. It is based on the 2016 French court case of Fabienne Kabou, who was convicted of the same crime. Diop attended Kabou's trial.

The film premiered in-competition at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on 7 September 2022,[1] where it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury prize along with the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future award.[2][3] Additional screenings were held at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2022 New York Film Festival before the theatrical release in France on 23 November 2022.[4][5] The film was selected as the French entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards.[6]

Plot[]

Rama, a literature professor and novelist, travels from Paris to Saint-Omer to observe the trial of Laurence Coly and write about the case. Coly is a student and Senegalese immigrant accused of leaving her 15-month-old daughter on a beach to be swept away by the tide in Berck. Rama, who is four-months pregnant and, like Coly, is in a mixed-race relationship and has a complex relationship with her own Senegalese immigrant mother, feels a personal connection to Coly. She plans to write a modern day retelling of the Greek Medea myth about the case. As she learns more about Coly's life and the isolation Coly experienced from her family and society while living in France, Rama becomes increasingly anxious about her own life and pregnancy.

Cast[]

  • as Rama
  • as Laurence Coly
  • Aurélia Petit as defence barrister Vaudenay
  • Valérie Dréville as the judge
  • Thomas de Pourquery as Adrian, Rama's partner
  • Xavier Maly as Luc Dumontet, Coly's partner
  • Robert Canterella as barrister
  • Salimata Kamate as Odile Diata
  • Salih Sigirci as Salih
  • Fatih Sahin as Fatih
  • Atillahan Karagedik as Jackson
  • Ege Güner as Ege Güner
  • Mustili as Mustafa
  • Lionel Top as Journalist

Production[]

Saint Omer is based on the 2016 courtcase of Fabienne Kabou, who was convicted of killing her daughter in 2013, in the same way as Coly. Diop followed the case and immediately recognized Kabou's features from news footage as being Senegalese, which is Diop's family heritage. Diop attended the trial and became "obsessed" with the case, noting that most of the attendees and participants at the trial were also women. Diop elaborated that she "wanted to find answers to my own intimate questions that I had asked myself about my relationship with my own mother and being a mother myself. And I decided that since I shared those same emotions with so many women, if we were all so obsessed with that event, it meant there was something universal in the story, which had to do with motherhood. So I decided to make a film about it."[7] Like Rama, Diop was pregant with her first child while attending the trial.[8] Diop said that she attended the trial out of "intuition" and did not decide to make a film about it until after the trial ended. Having only made documentary films, Diop made her narrative feature film debut because cameras were not allowed in the courtroom and she "wanted to recreate my experience of listening to another woman's story while interrogating myself, facing my own difficult truths."[9]

Court-transcripts were partially used to write the screenplay. While writing the script, Diop first met actresses Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanga. She was immediately impressed with both women and thought of them while still writing the script. She later contacted both Kagame and Malanga to audition. Diop was influenced by the work of Marguerite Duras, whom the character Rama gives a lecture about in the film.[7] Filming took six weeks and both the cast and crew were mostly female, which "wasn’t fully deliberate, nor was it wholly accidental" according to Diop.[9]

Release[]

Saint Omer was initially considered for the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.[10] It premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on 7 September 2022,[1] where it won the Grand Jury Prize along with the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future award.[2]

Critical reception[]

According to the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Saint Omer has a 100% approval rating based on 21 reviews from critics, with an average rating of 8.8/10.[11] On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film holds a score of 94 out of 100 based on 8 reviews indicating “universal acclaim”.[12] Manohla Dargis of the New York Times called it "Intellectually galvanizing and emotionally harrowing, the story explores motherhood, race and postcolonial France with control, lucidity and compassion."[13]

In September 2022 it was one of five films shortlisted for France's official selection for Best International Film at the 95th Academy Awards, ultimately being selected as the official submission.[14]

Accolades[]

Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Ref.
Venice Film Festival September 10, 2022 Golden Lion Alice Diop Nominated [15]
Grand Jury Prize Won
Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film Won
Casa Wabi – Mantarraya Award Won [16]
Cinema & Arts Award - Golden Musa Won
Edipo Re Award Won
London Film Festival October 16, 2022 Best Film Saint Omer Pending [17]
Film Fest Ghent October 22, 2022 Best Film Pending [18]
Chicago International Film Festival October 23, 2022 Gold Hugo Pending [19]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b "Saint Omer". La Biennale di Venezia. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b "Venice Film Festival Award Winners 2022". Indiewire. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
  3. ^ Pat Saperstein (16 September 2022). "Alice Diop's Venice Prize-Winner 'Saint Omer' Acquired By Neon's Boutique Label Super". Variety. Retrieved 16 September 2022.
  4. ^ Picard, Andréa. "Saint Omer". tiff.net. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
  5. ^ "Saint Omer". cineuropa.org. Retrieved 24 August 2022.
  6. ^ Goodfellow, Melanie (23 September 2022). "Oscars: France Selects Alice Diop's 'Saint Omer' For Best International Film Race". Deadline.com. Retrieved 23 September 2022.
  7. ^ Jump up to: a b Rapold, Nicolas (12 September 2022). "With Venice Winner Saint Omer, Director Alice Diop Puts Motherhood Under the Microscope". W Magazine. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  8. ^ Ide, Wendy (7 September 2022). "'Saint Omer': Venice Review". Screen Daily. Retrieved 20 September 2022.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Croll, Ben (10 September 2022). "Venice Prizewinner Alice Diop on the Haunting Nature of 'Saint Omer'". Variety. Retrieved 23 September 2022.
  10. ^ Ruimy, Jordan (19 September 2022). "Why Wasn't Alice Diop's 'Saint Omer' at Cannes?". World of Reel. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
  11. ^ Saint Omer, retrieved 10 September 2022
  12. ^ "Saint Omer 2022". Metacritic. Retrieved 15 September 2022.
  13. ^ Dargis, Manohla (16 September 2022). "In Toronto, Films by Women About Women, but That's Where the Similarities End". New York Times. Retrieved 22 September 2022.
  14. ^ "Oscar 2023 du long métrage international : la liste des films français présélectionnés". CNC. Retrieved 15 September 2022.
  15. ^ "Venice Film Festival Winners: Cate Blanchett, Colin Farrell Take Top Acting Prizes – Updating Live". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
  16. ^ "COLLATERAL AWARDS OF THE 79TH VENICE FILM FESTIVAL". labiennale.org. 10 September 2022. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
  17. ^ "Full programme announced for 66th BFI London Film Festival". BFI. Retrieved 17 September 2022.
  18. ^ "Film Fest Gent 2022: Toveren met licht en veerkracht". de wereld morgen (in Dutch). 29 September 2022. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
  19. ^ Kay, Jeremy (16 September 2022). "'No Bears', 'Saint Omer' among Chicago fest international selections (exclusive)". Screen Daily. Retrieved 2 October 2022.

External links[]

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