WEATHER ALERT

Q&A: Filmmaker Alice Diop mines darkness in ‘Saint Omer’

Advertisement

Advertise with us

In 2016, French documentary filmmaker Alice Diop made an unusual decision. She decided to travel to a town in Northern France to watch the trial of a Senegalese woman, Fabienne Kabou, who one night in 2013 left her 15-month-old daughter on the beach to die.

Read this article for free:

or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Monthly Digital Subscription

$1 per week for 24 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*Billed as $4 plus GST every four weeks. Offer only available to new and qualified returning subscribers. Cancel any time.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/01/2023 (763 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In 2016, French documentary filmmaker Alice Diop made an unusual decision. She decided to travel to a town in Northern France to watch the trial of a Senegalese woman, Fabienne Kabou, who one night in 2013 left her 15-month-old daughter on the beach to die.

Diop didn’t tell anyone she was going. She wasn’t even quite sure herself. But what she witnessed over the course of those few days would inspire her first narrative film, “ Saint Omer,” which opens in U.S. theaters Friday.

Quiet and haunting, “Saint Omer” is not your standard courtroom drama, nor is it a garish “true crime” spectacle. In it, a pregnant novelist, Rama (Kayije Kagame), bears witness to the testimony of Kabou stand-in Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda). Since winning the feature debut award at the Venice Film Festival, “Saint Omer” has continued to collect accolades and nominations, including a spot on the Oscars shortlist.

French filmmaker Alice Diop poses for a portrait to promote
French filmmaker Alice Diop poses for a portrait to promote "Saint Omer" in New York on Jan. 9, 2023. (Photo by Christopher Smith/Invision/AP)

With an English translator by her side, Diop spoke to The Associated Press this week about her intentions for the film, the “invisible women” at its heart and the unexpected catharsis she found that she wanted to also give to audiences. Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.

AP: Why do you think you were compelled to go to the trial?

DIOP: I went to the trial because I had a very strong intuition. But for a very long time, I didn’t know what it was about. I didn’t think, ‘Oh, I’m going to go to the trial and make a film about it.’ I think as a woman, as actually many other women around me, I was completely fascinated by this story. I really went as a woman. What struck me was a sentence that the defendant said to the police. When the inspector asked, ‘Why did you kill your daughter?’ she said, ‘I laid my daughter on the sand because I wanted the sea to take her away.’ For the French, it carries a very profound, psychoanalytic dimension because in French, the mother and the sea are the same word (mère and mer). In my head, I had the fantasy that she offered her daughter to a mother that was more powerful than she felt. It is this imagery of this mythological concept that became a magnet for me. But during the five days that I listened to this trial, I had no idea that it was going to draw me to the deepest, darkest place of my being.

AP: Having a child myself viscerally changed how I processed movies and stories about children in distress. Did you have an experience like that too, as a mother thinking about a story like this?

DIOP: I can’t exactly say that. But it is true that my partner was very concerned by my obsession with this story. Even for me it was a complete mystery. I did not understand why me, as a Black woman, could be so fascinated by this story of a Black woman that had killed her child. That was incomprehensible to me. I’m going to tell you something very personal, which I never talk about. I actually had a very deep postpartum depression when my child was a baby. And I believe that this trial is what helped me heal out of that depression. I not only forgave myself, but I also forgave my mother. It’s as if this trial was helping me, killing all this trauma.

AP: Thank you for sharing that, I feel like I may cry. We can certainly shift to talking more about the film.

DIOP: It’s less dangerous if we talk about the film.

AP: The idea of the invisible woman comes up often. Can you talk about the significance of that?

DIOP: I think it’s a very central point of the film. It frames and puts light on the woman that nobody listened to, that nobody saw, that nobody was aware of. And the mother of this woman, the mother of the character Rama, as my mother and all the mothers of this generation of immigrant women, are women that the cinema never showed or talked about. This is what determined one of the most important concepts of this film, which is those very long one takes so that the audience would finally have the opportunity to intensely observe and listen to these women for the first time. For me that is a political statement, and it is also what drove me to want to make cinema. It’s a tool to show these women, to put those woman in the center of visibility when nobody else did it, and to understand the complexity of the character rather than the cliché.

AP: The score is also sparse but impactful.

DIOP: I wanted this score, the music, to evoke the theatricality and the myth of emotion that I wanted to bring to the film, like a Greek chorus, a group of women together wanting to observe and watch this strange phenomenon that took place. And as far as the last piece, the Nina Simone song (“Little Girl Blue”) to me is the voice that comes and brings consolation and soothing to everything that we just witnessed.

AP: It is surprising to be able to find catharsis in such a horrifying case.

DIOP: The film works very hard in withholding the emotion, in keeping it inside. There is a liberation of that emotion when we have the lawyer’s closing argument toward the end. Finally, when Nina’s song comes, nobody can hold the emotion anymore and what people feel is no longer the story of the film, but their own story, as women, as little girls. This film, the way I wrote it, was to give the audience the specter of personal experience as if they had followed the trial themselves. I was in tears at the end of the trial, and I know lots of women who watch it are completely overwhelmed with emotions.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Why was Taylor Swift booed at the Super Bowl?

Dave Skretta And Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press 9 minute read Preview

Why was Taylor Swift booed at the Super Bowl?

Dave Skretta And Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press 9 minute read Sunday, Feb 9, 2025

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — There was no on-field celebration for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce after this Super Bowl. Only consolation far away from the prying TV cameras.

The pop superstar turned up at the big game for the second consecutive year as her boyfriend and the Kansas City Chiefs tried to make history by winning a third consecutive Lombardi Trophy. Instead, Swift found herself booed by a pro-Eagles crowd and then had to endure their countless cheers as Philadelphia rolled to a 40-22 victory at the Superdome.

Last year, Swift and Kelce locked lips on the field at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas as red and gold confetti fell like rain after the Chiefs won their second straight Super Bowl — the duo's first since becoming a sports-and-music power couple.

That was a celebratory affair for Swift all night: She won a beer-chugging contest to raucous cheers from the pro-Chiefs crowd, and she spent the game partying with celebrity friends including Blake Lively and Lana Del Rey.

Read
Sunday, Feb 9, 2025
A person wearing a Taylor Swift shirt walks in the French Quarter before the NFL Super Bowl 59 football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Opinion: Marriage is only as mundane as you make it

Maureen Scurfield 5 minute read Saturday, Jan 4, 2025

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My husband is making annoying new year’s resolutions for me. He just told me he wants me to resolve to quit drinking after work with my friends, on our two weekly girls’ nights out. He also wants me to start making our dinners at home every night.

I just laughed and said, “Who am I now, your mother? We’re not even 25 years old yet. Plus, you’re a better cook than I am, and I don’t really get home from work any earlier than you do.” (He finishes at 5:45 p.m. and comes straight home, while I clock out at 5:30, and usually stop for a few groceries and then we walk in the door at pretty much the same time.)

He was mad, but had no reply. So, I threw a pizza in the oven and made us a salad.

The next night, I got home later than usual, on purpose, and there was no dinner made. He just said, “Why don’t I go back to playing poker with my buddies on Wednesday and Saturday nights, and have dinner with them?”

Edmonton man out of coma after assault at Dominican Republic resort bar

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press 5 minute read Preview

Edmonton man out of coma after assault at Dominican Republic resort bar

Fakiha Baig, The Canadian Press 5 minute read Friday, Feb 7, 2025

EDMONTON - An Edmonton man who was attacked in a resort bar in the Dominican Republic is out of a coma in hospital.

Cindy Rowan says she's relieved her son, Chase Delorme-Rowan, is also talking for the first time since Jan. 14, when he was slammed to the ground during a family vacation celebrating his 18th birthday.

She says doctors are still trying to figure out when they can replace a piece of his skull that was removed to allow his swollen brain room to recover — then tossed away.

Read
Friday, Feb 7, 2025
Chase Delorme-Rowan is shown in a handout photo taken in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. The Edmonton man, who was assaulted in a bar in the Dominican Republic, is out of a coma. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Cindy Rowan **MANDATORY CREDIT**

GoFundMe created to help Manitoba curler Briane Harris cover legel fees

Joshua Frey-Sam 6 minute read Preview

GoFundMe created to help Manitoba curler Briane Harris cover legel fees

Joshua Frey-Sam 6 minute read Yesterday at 11:17 PM UTC

Petersfield residents have launched a GoFundMe campaign on behalf of local professional curler Briane Harris to help ease the financial hardship she has endured fighting her ban from competitive curling.

Harris, a four-time Canadian champion lead with Kerri Einarson’s team, served a provisional suspension that dragged on 11 months after testing positive for trace amounts of an illegal substance, Ligandrol, a year ago.

Harris finally won her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport last month — it ruled she bore no fault or negligence for being exposed to the banned substance, which her husband passed along — but was left with thousands of dollars in legal fees.

The idea to raise money had been floated a few times as people learned of the hefty bill Harris incurred, but it never got off the ground until Dianne Grocholski, a longtime family friend, acted on it.

Read
Yesterday at 11:17 PM UTC
JONAS EKSTROMER / TT NEWS AGENCY VIA AP FILES Petersfield residents have created an online fundraiser to help Briane Harris cover legal fees incurred fighting doping charges.

What's next, a 'throuple with Mexico'? Late-night mocks Trump's '51st state' comments

The Canadian Press 5 minute read Preview

What's next, a 'throuple with Mexico'? Late-night mocks Trump's '51st state' comments

The Canadian Press 5 minute read Friday, Jan 10, 2025

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has been brandishing threats about turning Canada into the 51st state — something Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says is a diversion tactic to distract from the very real threat of a proposed 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods.

Trump's comments have certainly caught the attention of the figureheads of one of America's more venerated institutions: late-night talk shows. Here's what the hosts had to say about it earlier this week:

LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS:

Read
Friday, Jan 10, 2025
Seth Meyers arrives at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Jae C. Hong

Opinion: Don’t overreact to subconscious mumbling

Maureen Scurfield 4 minute read Sunday, Dec 29, 2024

DEAR MISS LONELYHEARTS: My new boyfriend has started having dreams and talking in his sleep. Last night I unfortunately overheard a dream he was having, and he was mumbling a woman’s name I recognized — his old girlfriend before me.

I was so mad! I got up and drove home at 4 a.m. He’s refused to answer any of my questions or respond to my accusations. Who’s in the right here?

— Have My Pride, St. Norbert

Dear Have Pride: When you’re sleeping beside a new mate, you automatically take a chance on overhearing them talk in their sleep. If they’re having an erotic dream and calling out a name that doesn’t sound like yours, it may be an “out-of-date” partner, and the dream is just a re-run of a once fun experience. It’s not really a matter of choice where our subconscious minds take us during REM sleep.