Emotions guaranteed with this tough and moving French drama, released in theaters in November 2023, broadcast for the first time free-to-air this Wednesday, October 9, 2024 on Arte. An adaptation of a tragic news story, awarded at the Venice Festival in 2022 and at the Césars in 2023.
We may be surprised or not, but the news items fascinate the public. Television and platforms are full of very strong documentaries on the worst crimes. And the subject is also covered in cinema, with notable films, such as Policies by Maïwenn (2011), part of which is directly inspired by a terrible true story. Or, more recently, The Night of the 12tha dark thriller which won no less than six Césars in 2023, with a story as intriguing as it is moving, based on a terrible femicide. Real facts are also being discussed this Wednesday, October 9, 2024, with the broadcast at 8:55 p.m. on Arte of Saint-Omer.
Saint-Omer, a dark drama rewarded in Venice and the Césars
Released in theaters in November 2022, Saint-Omer follows Rama, a young writer who leaves Ile-de-France for a time to attend, in Saint-Omer, in Pas-de-Calais, the trial of Laurence Coly, a Senegalese student, accused of having killed her daughter fifteen months. Over the course of the hearings, the accused reveals an enigmatic personality under the fascinated gaze of Rama, also black and pregnant. Deep, bitter and disturbing drama about motherhood, Saint-Omer is signed by French filmmaker Alice Diop, who dazzled photographers on the red carpet of the Venice Festival in 2022. At the Mostra, the film was also doubly rewarded, winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the prize for best first film. Also crowned with the 2023 César for best first work, the film was chosen by France as a representative for the Oscar for best foreign film, but was not part of the final selection.
What news item inspired Saint-Omer ?
First fiction feature film by Alice Diop after several short films and documentaries, Saint-Omer is inspired by a terrible infanticide that occurred in November 2013 in Berck-sur-Mer when Fabienne Kalou killed Adelaïde, her fifteen-month-old daughter, whose body was found on the beach by a fisherman. Tried for the first time in 2016, the accused was sentenced on appeal in 2017 to fifteen years of criminal imprisonment, accompanied by socio-judicial monitoring and an eight-year treatment order.
