the terrible true story that inspired the Caesarized film

Saint Omer is a film by Alice Diop, released in November 2022, which was preselected to represent France at the 2023 Oscars, won the César for best first film and the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival the same year .

Synopsis – Writer, Rama goes to the Saint-Omer assize court to follow the trial of Laurence Coly, a thirty-year-old accused of having ended the life of her fifteen-month-old daughter in a sordid manner. There, Rama falters when faced with the declarations of this woman of Senegalese origin, like her, who seems incapable of freeing herself from her demons. Although endowed with a higher than normal intelligence quotient, Laurence is unable to distance herself from the weight of the traditions of her native country despite years spent in France. She claims to have wanted to shorten the suffering of a little girl who came into the world under bad auspices…

The true story that inspired Saint Omer

Saint Omer is inspired by a true story and a tragic news item: that of Fabienne Kabou, renamed Laurence Coly in the film. In 2013, she left her 15-month-old daughter on a beach in Berck-sur-Mer, during high tide. The toddler died of drowning, discovered by fishermen in the early morning. The trail quickly turns to the mother, who had arrived at a hotel the day before with the child, but who had paid the price of the room without her baby.

Fabienne Kabou confesses the facts, claiming to be the victim of a voodoo spell, and finds herself indicted for murder. While a psychiatric report clarified that she probably suffered from paranoid psychosis, she was tried in 2016 before the Saint-Omer Assize Court. After appealing the first court decision, she was sentenced to 15 years in prison.