Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2022: #70. Alice Diop’s Saint-Omer

Saint-Omer

A documentary filmmaker for about a decade now, the Senegalese French born Alice Diop has set her sights now on fiction having contributed to episodes of H24, 24 h de la vie d’une femme right after seeing her last feature doc We break into prestige fests such as Berlin, New Directors/New Films, Karlovy Vary and BFI London Film Festival. Also worth the mention, just prior to that, Vers La tendresse winning the César for best short. Saint-Omer went into production in the beginning in May of 2021, and is written by Diop and Marie N’Diaye of (White Material) fame and produced by Les Misérables producers Christophe Barral and Toufik Ayadi. This stars Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanda (My Friend Victoria).

Gist: This sees a 30-something novelist Rama attend the trial of Laurence Coly at the Saint-Omer Criminal Court. The latter is accused of killing her fifteen-month-old daughter by abandoning her on a beach in the north of France just as the tide was rising. Rama would like to use this story to write a modern-day adaptation of the ancient myth of Medea, but things don’t go as planned during the trial. Ultimately, it will be Rama’s relationship with motherhood which is called into question during this “huis clos” trial…

Release Date/Prediction: We’re thinking this is being lined up for a premiere in Cannes – with Critics’ Week being the prime target.