SAINT OMER
French V.O. subtitled in English and Spanish
Not many things have been more thrilling in recent years than seeing Alice Diop win three awards at Venice (including the Silver Lion), in her fiction debut after a long career in documentaries. Saint Omer delivers an emotionally charged shock, inspired by the true story of a Senegalese-born woman who abandoned her 15-month-old baby on a French seashore. We witness her trial through the eyes of a young pregnant novelist (also of Senegalese origin) who wants to write about the myth of Medea. A work that is at the same time a tense trial film, a psychological portrait, and an uncomfortable reflection on human acts, motherhood, and the cultural problems of those who migrate. Co-written by Marie NDiaye, co-author of White Material (Claire Denis).
Direction: Alice Diop
Script: Alice Diop, Amrita David, Marie Ndiaye
Cinematography: Claire Mathon (A.F.C)
Editing: Amrita David
Sound: Dana Farzanehpour, Josefina Rodriguez, Lucile Demarquet, Emmanuel Croset
Cast: Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville, Aurélia Petit, Xavier Maly, Robert Cantarella, Salimata Kamate, Thomas de Pourquery
Production: Rym Hachimi, Paul Sergent
Distributor: Les films du Solange
International sales: Wild Bunch International
French director and scriptwriter born in 1979, Alice Diop studied history and visual sociology at the Sorbonne, and, since 2005, she has dedicated her career to documentary filmmaking. Her short and medium-length films have been frequently selected in international festivals, including Les Sénégalaises et la Sénégauloise (2007), On Call (2016), y Toward Tenderness (2016), thus winning the latter the César for Best Short Film in 2017. We, her debut feature film, was a success at the 2021 Berlinale, winning the awards for Best Documentary and Best Film in the Encounters section. Saint Omer is her latest film and her first fictional work.
